“You can.” Her words slice through the air like a scalpel. She leans forward, elbows on her knees, her eyes never leaving mine. “It’s nothing new, Henry. We both?—”
I let out a sharp breath. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think.”
She shifts, coming closer. My knees brush hers. Her scent—soap and firewood and outside air and something else that’s just her—threatens to choke me.
“Tell me no,” she whispers. “If you don’t want me, tell me no.”
God help me, I can’t.
I lean back into the couch, dragging in a breath. “I’m trying to protect you.”
Her lips curve. “Then stop.”
The fire cracks. Rain taps against the windows. My pulse pounds in my ears.
“Don’t hold back this time.”
Fuck. Those words snap the last thread of restraint in me.
My chest heaves. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Yes, I do.” Her voice doesn’t waver. “Do you think I was just a bystander in the barn? I want you, Henry. All of you. The man who makes me feel like the ground is falling away but I’m still safe.”
Safe. The one thing I haven’t been since…
I should walk away.
Instead, I surge forward, close my hands around her face, and crash my mouth onto hers.
It’s raw. Desperate. Her lips part on a gasp, and I take what I need, our tongues tangling, teeth clashing. She tastes like everything I ever wanted. Everything I’ll never get enough of.
She pulls at my shirt, unbuttoning it and sliding it over my shoulders. I’m already reaching for her hips, hauling her against me. We hit the cushions in a tangle of limbs, her legs straddling mine.
Heat pulses through every inch of me. She rocks against me, and I groan.
“Clothes,” she rasps out. “Too many clothes, Henry.”
I pull her shirt over her head, watch her gorgeous breasts fall against her chest.
She scrapes her nails against my shoulders. “Henry,” she breathes.
I unbutton her jeans, throw them on the floor, and slide my fingers underneath her panties.
“Fuck.” She’s wet. So damned wet. I tear the panties from her and flip her beneath me, pressing her into the couch. She arches up. I get rid of my sandals and jeans and just stare at her beautiful body.
She’s here. She’s mine.
For once, I let myself stop fighting it.
She’s warm beneath me, her thighs trembling as she hooks them around my waist.
I look down at her, at the blond hair fanned across the cushions, the lips swollen from my kisses, the eyes fiery amber with want.
“Say it,” I growl, my forehead resting against hers.
She digs her fingers into my biceps. “What?”
