"The hilltop. Your hand on the back of my neck. The way you laughed when I said your spreadsheet needed work." His fingers moved from my neck to my shoulder. Light. Unhurried. Tracing the ridge of my collarbone through my shirt. "The way you are with Maisie — how you two laugh together like you've got your own language nobody else speaks. Like the whole world is just you and her and whatever the joke is."
"What else?" My voice had dropped to something I barely recognized.
"The freckle right here." His fingertip touched the hollow of my throat and my whole body went warm. He drew a slow line down to my collarbone, and I felt it everywhere — every nerve ending lighting up under that single point of contact.
"I noticed it the first day you walked into the barn, and I've been trying not to stare at it for weeks."
My breath stuttered.
His eyes tracked the movement of my chest, then came back to my face, dark and unhurried and absolutely deliberate.
"Clay." His name came out low. Rough. Almost a warning. Almost not.
"Yeah?" He didn't move his hand. His thumb brushed the curve of my collarbone, back and forth, slow enough to make me dizzy.
I didn't answer. Instead, I shifted — uncurling my legs, turning my body until I was facing him fully. Close. His arm was still along the back behind me, and when I moved, his hand settled on my shoulder — warm, heavy, anchoring.
"Tell me one more thing," I said.
"Anything."
"Are you going to kiss me tonight?"
His hand tightened on my shoulder. A breath. Then, very deliberately, he relaxed it. "No," he said. "Not tonight."
My stomach dropped. Then I saw his face — the restraint in it, the effort, the way his jaw was set like a man holding a line — and I understood. He was giving it to me. The choice. The agency. The thing Preston had never once offered.
"But if you wanted to kiss me," he said. Rough. Almost hoarse. "I wouldn't stop you."
The space between us was six inches. I could feel the heat of his body. Could smell the soap and hay and something underneath that was just him — warm skin, warm man, a scent I'd been collecting without meaning to.
I put my hand on his chest. Felt his heart slamming under my palm. His eyes were dark, his breathing uneven, and he was holding so still — every muscle locked, every instinct leashed — because he'd decided that this one was mine.
I leaned in. Slowly. Giving myself time to stop, because some part of me needed to know I could. That the door was open. That I was choosing to walk through it.
His breath ghosted across my mouth. His hand left my shoulder, both hands dropping to the couch on either side of his thighs — surrendering the contact, making himself open, giving me all the control.
I kissed him.
Not careful. Not tentative. I kissed him with two years of locked doors behind me and his heartbeat under my hand. My fingers slid from his chest to the back of his neck, and I pulled him into me. He made a sound against my mouth that was broken and grateful, and it sent electricity down my spine.
I pulled back. His eyes were closed. His chest was heaving.
"You can — you can touch me."
His eyes opened. Dark. Searching. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
His hands came up — careful, shaking, like he was afraid of breaking something — and cupped my face. His thumbs brushed my cheekbones. He held me like I was made of something precious and looked at me with an expression that stripped me bare.
"Tell me what you want," he said. "No wrong answer."
"You." It came out steadier than I expected. "Take me to bed, Clay."
He stood. Pulled me up with him. And instead of scooping me up, he laced his fingers through mine. Held my hand. Walked me down the hall past Maisie's door like we had all the time in the world, because he understood that what I needed wasn't to be carried. It was to walk there on my own legs, holding on to someone I chose.
He stopped at the foot of my bed and turned to me. His hand came up to my face, and he tucked the hair behind my ear the way he'd done in the kitchen, only this time his fingers trailed down — jaw, collarbone, the slope of my shoulder — and I shivered.
