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She walked up the stairs, and he followed close behind in case she lost her balance. He was playing with fire bringing her up here, but she would only have good memories of him if she had any at all. He certainly hadn’t forgotten the nights they’d spent up here after dark, the moonlight slatting through the open window while they lay naked on a bed of fresh straw.
“Haven’t done this in a while,” he confessed as she wandered around the spacious loft. He hadn’t ever brought another woman here, and he hadn’t brought Aubrey since they were young. It was sacred, this space. And like he’d time traveled back to those days, he had the sudden urge to take off her clothes. To make love to her while confessing how she still tied him up in knots.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, picking up on his silence.
Too many things to mention. He shook his head and confessed, “Maybe this is a bad idea.”
Fingertips stroking a hay bale, she turned to face him. His anguished expression said what he wouldn’t.
He was worried about her. He’d shadowed her every footfall as she’d climbed the stairs, his arms open to catch her. Her knight in a black Stetson. He hadn’t worn the hat tonight, which gave her an unobstructed view of the concern etched across his forehead. Moonlight caught the angles of his hard jaw as well as the feisty bad-boy glint in his eyes that’d been there before he’d reconsidered his intentions.
She took the blanket from his hands. “I know what you’re worried about.”
“You do?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he folded his arms over his chest.
“Yes.” She wasn’t going to let him ruin this evening, not when they both wanted the same thing. She untucked her plaid shirt from her jeans. “You’re trying to take it easy on me because I’m injured. You’re worried that you’ll cause a setback for me, and then you’ll never forgive yourself for it.” She unbuttoned the bottom two buttons of her shirt. He watched as she slipped each pearlescent button through the fabric. “You have to trust that I know what’s best for me.”
She finished unbuttoning the shirt, noting the exact moment the worry left Vic’s expression and dark hunger overtook it. She tossed the shirt aside. He took another step closer to her, his hands going to her waist.
The only sounds around them were the occasional whinny from downstairs and the tight, anticipatory breaths she was taking. She turned her attention to the buttons on his shirt next. “I remember.”
His voice was a dry husk when he asked, “What do you remember?”
“Stargazing on horseback.” She plucked at another button. “Whispering as we checked the stable to see if your daddy or any ranch hands were in here. Climbing up into this loft with a blanket and a stolen bottle of whiskey from your parents’ liquor cabinet.”
He grinned. “Our getaway.”
“As if your enormous family home hadn’t offered enough privacy.”
“You liked it outside better,” he said.
“I liked it with you any way I could get it, Vic Grandin.” She opened his unbuttoned shirt and smoothed her hands over his heated skin. Firm pecs, the perfect sprinkle of chest hair and a taut belly. He was a beautiful specimen of a man. And he was all man. Not the skinnier version of the boy she’d fallen in love with, though he was there, too. She could see the nervous twitch of that boy’s smile. She placed a kiss on his chest, closing her lips over his bare skin as she inhaled. His cedar-and-citrus scent mingled with the fragrance of hay, taking her back in time ten years.
He tipped her chin as she was about to kiss his chest again. “Aubrey, before you—”
“I trust you. More than anyone. Now you have to trust me. You’re right. I’m strong. I know what I can handle and what I can’t.” She pulled his belt free, snaking the thick leather through his belt loops and tossing it to the floor. “I can handle you.”
“That a fact?” His smile returned, the lust in his eyes crowding out his earlier concern.
“Why don’t you try me and find out, cowboy?” She cupped where his jeans tented, finding him primed and hard for her. He held himself in check, but only barely. His nostrils flared. His gaze rerouted to the overflowing cups of her bra.
He tugged her close, dipping his face until his lips hovered a hairsbreadth above hers. “Last chance.”
She pushed to her toes and crushed her lips to his, hugging his neck and pressing her breasts against his chest. He bent and lifted her, cradling her ass in his wide hands as she wrapped her legs around his body. Then he moved to a hay bale and plopped her onto it, where they made out long and slow.
His mouth slanted over hers, hungry and impatient, the pace intentional. Every part of her body responded, from her tightening nipples to the liquid heat pooling in her belly. She wiggled and squirmed as he stroked her tongue with his, seeking relief where she needed it most.
He’d always been good at this. She had been kissing Vic for years and had never once been disappointed. He poured his entire self into a kiss. Everything he wanted to say but didn’t. Whenever they were physically together, nothing else mattered. Not time or place or any argument they’d had about their combined futures.
Eyes shut, she pulled her lips from his. That thought tried to unlock the door to another, but the key wouldn’t quite turn.
Vic kissed the side of her throat once, twice, while she waited for clarity to come. It vanished before a memory could form. When his lips hit the tender skin behind her ear, she stopped her mental struggle. Time was the key to her healing. Time, and really delicious sex with her boyfriend.
She unbuttoned his jeans and unzipped his fly, wedging her hand behind the stiff denim. What she encountered was smooth, thick and long, and guaranteed to make her smile. The last time they’d slept together had been the night before her accident, which was way too long ago for her taste.
Vic, no longer arguing about her health, kicked off his boots and shucked his clothes. He helped her off the bale and out of her clothes next, resting his lips over hers as he laid her out on the blanket.
He worked his way down her throat, then glided his tongue along her collarbone. By the time he set his mouth to her nipple, he’d reduced her to a pleading, panting woman with only one thing on her mind.
“Please, what?” He smiled against her breast, his inhalation leaving goose bumps on her skin.
“Don’t tease me,” she warned, but she barely meant it. She couldn’t remember feeling this carefree before. Had she?
“Yes, ma’am.” He kissed his way down her stomach and to her hip bones before settling between her legs. Once there, he knew how to please her—slow, then fast, before slowing down again. She clutched his hair in one fist, arched her neck and gave in. He was in control of her pleasure, leaving her free to float untethered, no worries clogging her mind.
Moments later, she gave in to pleasure so acute she almost couldn’t bear it. She muffled her cries with one hand until Vic surfaced and replaced that hand with his mouth. And while she was kissing him, she felt a single tear leak from each eye that she didn’t bother hiding.
