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“Show me your bedroom.”
“I’m not that easy.”
For the first time in…ever, challenging her wasn’t going to work. Fine. He could switch tactics. He kissed the corner of her mouth. “What if I apologized for the woodpile comment?”
Her eyelids drifted down, and her fingers curled into his belt loop. “I’d accept your apology, but my bedroom’s still not on the tour.”
He kissed the opposite corner and then raised his head. “What if I said I was wrong the other night, when I suggested you should take a buyout?”
Her eyelids flew open, and she stared up at him. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. You were right. You can’t go a mile down the road and find the exact same thing you have here. A buyout won’t work. This is too unique.”
She tipped her head to the side, and her lips twisted into a half smile. “Nice to hear, but ultimately irrelevant. You don’t make the decisions. You point out the risks and offer solutions.” The smile disappeared, and she set her jaw. “It’s on me to convince the city planning commission to grant my permit, and deny theirs.”
She’d summed up the situation perfectly. This was her problem to handle, but the look on her face reminded him too much of a girl outside a gym, about to take on a guy twice her size who didn’t give a damn what she wanted. The impulsive part of him he no longer let handle executive functions wrested control of his prefrontal cortex. His hand curved around the nape of her neck and brought her face close to his. His mouth was running before he could shut it down. “I’ll figure a way to work it out.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“It’s my job to find solutions, and I’m going to find one for you.” Fuck if he knew how, but now that the words were out, he realized he meant them.
“But…I thought you favored the simplest option?”
“I said the simplest option usually wins the day. Governments especially tend to like the most economic solutions, but simple economics don’t make something right. You bought the barn as a home, not an investment, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your home because it’s suddenly inconvenient for others. I’ll come up with a solution. I promise.”
“How…?”
“Just trust me,” he repeated. Her lips parted on another question—one he probably couldn’t answer—so he ended the conversation by commandeering her upper lip with his teeth. At her sigh of surrender, he dragged her up and into his arms, palming her ass through her jeans as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her upstairs, but stopped on the landing outside the half-open door.
“Show me your bedroom, Sinclair.” His voice held a note he didn’t recognize. Desperation. He needed some gesture from her. Some privilege. Even a small one.
Teeth scoured the line of his jaw, and then her cool voice filled his ear.
“Only if you let me grab your dick.”
A man who didn’t know her as well might interpret the retort as a sexy joke, but he knew her well. It was her way of establishing limits. Specifically, limiting the things bonding them together to sex. She was trying to set the terms.
Sorry, baby girl. No deal.
Yes, he was already kissing her. Already pushing through the door of her whitewashed bedroom. And yes, his hands were already under her shirt, bracketing her ribs and closing in on the lush weight of her breasts, but that wasn’t any kind of surrender on his part. His plan involved making her need him—on more than just a temporary, physical level—but a resourceful man used any means at his disposal. Satisfying her physical needs was a means, and he intended to satisfy her until she couldn’t think straight. He simply had to do it while enforcing one hard stop. He’d never been inside her without anything less than her absolute and total trust, and he refused to start now.
Details filtered in as he crossed the room—filmy white curtains covering dormer windows, the cushion of a rug beneath his feet, and…he stopped dead in his tracks. “Holy shit.”
She actually blushed a little. “What? Just because I live in a barn, I can’t appreciate a little luxury where I sleep?”
Centered under a soaring, multi-paned skylight sat a big, upholstered sleigh bed. It dominated the space, dove-gray velvet head and footboards gracefully rolled outward, practically inviting him to put them to use.
Impractical and romantic, just like the woman who spent her nights cradled in it. She owned up to her impractical side easily enough, but she tended to keep the romantic side under wraps. Or did she? Unjustifiably proprietary instincts had him asking questions he had no right to ask, and might not be prepared to hear the answers to.
“No other man has been in this room with you? In that bed with you?”
“You’re the first,” she admitted, breathing into his ear. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Oh, it went to his head, and a few other places. He rubbed his lips against hers and sat himself down on the edge of the bed so she straddled his lap. She deepened the kiss. Need and trust—the move felt a little like both. He’d take it. He gripped her hips and shifted her more tightly onto his lap. “I appreciate your honesty, Sinclair. Let’s aim for some more. What we have here isn’t leftover chemistry. Every single thing that’s happened between us since I got back is new. You’re not a sixteen-year-old with a wild streak and no sense of her own power. I’m not an impulsive fuckup skating through life by the seat of my pants.”
He kissed her hard, to seal those words in her mind, before continuing. “I’m not that guy anymore. I’m going to prove it to you.”
Slender arms wrapped around his neck. She tilted her head and angled her lips toward his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except this moment right now. No past. No future. Just this.” It seemed she had her own points to prove, bec
