I didn’t know how to answer her now. What if she felt like I’d betrayed her, our friendship, this entire time? There was a staggering amount of pain that hit me in the chest at the idea.
“Clara, I’m sorry if I upset you, I –”
Her breath hitched. And those were tears in her eyes. “No, no, it’s – it’s fine.” She kept shaking her head and backed out of my arms. “I must not have heard you correctly. Don’t even worry about it.” She turned to leave, but there was something wrong. She wouldn’t have come all the way to the ranch to talk to me about this unless it was important to her.
I grabbed her wrist to keep her with me. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing, you’re not missing anything. Thatcher made a snide comment, and I thought you said something, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, but I must be wrong. I didn’t mean to interrupt your morning. I’ll go.” She slipped out of my hold and started to walk away.
It took three heartbeats to hear and process what she said, realize what it meant, mentally shuffle through and reject all hesitations, and decide between now or never.
Now.
“Clara,” I called as I closed the distance she kept trying to put between us. “Wait, please.”
“It’s okay, I didn’t –”
I grabbed her wrist and spun her against me. She smelled like lilac and sunshine, and her eyes were wide. “Are you asking about Thatcher’s comment that we should just get together?”
I watched her throat as she swallowed before she answered with a nod.
“And what I said after that?”
Another nod.
“Don’t I know it.” I leaned down and pressed my lips against the top of her head.
Clara looked up at me, hope and fear mixing in her brown eyes. “Do you?”
Fuck it.
“Yes,” I whispered before I finally claimed her mouth.
Chapter Three
Clara
Wanting to kiss Beckett and the experience of kissing Beckett were two different things. Wanting was desire, longing, a type of suffering.
Kissing him, though. Kissing him and being kissed by Beckett Ashland was the kind of divine torment I wanted more of.
One moment, I’d been looking up at his green eyes, asking if he’d meant that quip when Thatcher had teased about us getting together, and the next …
Beckett’s soft lips were on mine, his arms around my waist and tugging me against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned into it.
I moaned. I couldn’t help it.
Beckett growled.
My body had been on fire since the moment he’d found me, even though I’d frozen in place. Now, I burned with a fierce need.
Beckett bent and gripped the back of my thighs and lifted. My dress hitched up as I wrapped my legs around his waist. Hismouth was on my neck, and I could barely think past the feel of his lips against my skin. Everything felt so right.
“Clara,” he breathed. “Fuck, I need you.”
I didn’t know where any of this came from, but I wasn’t sure I cared. “I need you, too.” I nibbled on the edge of his ear and tangled my fingers in his hair. I rocked my hips against him, searching for friction, for more. I needed more. There were too many layers between us, and we were in too public of a place for what I wanted to happen next. What my body needed to happen next.
“Beckett.” His name came out in a moan as he found the sensitive spot between my neck and collarbone.
