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Relief like Julian felt shouldn’t even exist. It was too potent. Too powerful. How would he go about his daily life ever again knowing this collision of power and weakness was available to him? To them?
He tried not to collapse on top of her and failed, his body utterly replete of tension. But she welcomed him, their tongues moving together lazily in each other’s mouths, her hands molding his ass like clay inside his loosened pants. With . . . a sort of ownership that he couldn’t bestow fast enough. “I’m yours, too,” he said, still regaining his breath. Would he ever catch it again? “In case I forgot to mention that.”
“I read between the lines,” she murmured drowsily.
There was nothing to do but kiss her, savor the catch in her throat. For him. When she needed to breathe he pulled back, studying her, still unable to break the connection of their bodies, though he needed to soon. “I love you like this. Drowsy and pinned to the ground where you can’t make trouble.”
Those tiny, feminine muscles jumped along with the corner of her mouth. “Are you sure?”
“I take it back,” he said in a gruff rush, his shaft swelling back to life. In a matter of minutes, he’d be capable of taking her again. Unbelievably, he needed to. More than he could remember needing anything. Even with his sweat still drying from the last time. This was love. This was infatuation. There was no way out, and he wasn’t looking for an exit. No, he was sealing all of them shut. But was he going to fuck her again on the hard ground in the rapidly dropping temperature instead of caring for her like she deserved? Also no. As much as this was going to kill him. With a wince, Julian pulled out, took care of the condom. “Come home with me,” he said, watching as she fixed her dress, covering love-bitten breasts and thighs chafed from the material of his pants. Mine. “Let me do this better.”
“Wait.” She blinked at him. “There’s a better?”
His hearty laugh echoed across the vineyard.
* * *
When they reached the lighted area surrounding the barn, he took stock of Hallie’s appearance, pulling pieces of straw and mulch from her hair, dusting dirt off her calves and elbows. She did the same for him, though he’d sustained far less damage. He pulled her close and whispered in the shadow of the barn about how she should wear her hair to cover the love bite on her neck, their fingers tangling together, mouths unable to stop connecting, lips brushing, kisses deepening.
Finally, they managed to muster some decent behavior, holding hands on their way back into the barn, which was now . . . empty.
They stopped short.
Well, not entirely empty.
Natalie and the SEAL—August, right?—were toe to toe, their noses inches apart. But this time, they weren’t flirting. No, he knew his sister’s “pissed off” posture when he saw it.
“Uh-oh,” Hallie murmured.
“I was only making a suggestion,” Natalie said, very succinctly, up at the hulking military man. “I grew up on a vineyard—fermentation is in my blood.”
“Only problem with that, baby, is I didn’t ask.”
“Well, you should have asked someone. Because your wine tastes like demon piss.”
“Didn’t stop you from drinking a gallon of it,” he pointed out calmly.
“Maybe I needed to be drunk to consider sleeping with you!”
The man grinned. Or bared his teeth. Hard to tell from this distance. “Offer is still open, Natalie. As long as you promise to stop talking.”
With that, Natalie threw wine in August’s face.
Julian shot forward, no idea how the SEAL was going to react. But he worried for nothing, because the man didn’t even flinch. Instead, he licked the wine off his own chin and winked at her. “Tastes fine to me.”
“I hate you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
Angling her face toward the rafters, she shrieked through her teeth. “I can’t believe the things I was going to let you do to me.”
That gave August pause. He gave Natalie a very distinct once-over that Julian immediately wished he could erase from his brain. “Just out of curiosity,” August started, “those things were . . . ?”
“All right.” Julian cleared his throat. “I’ll stop you both there.”
“Where have you been?” Natalie cried out, throwing up her hands at her brother’s approach. “You left me here with this Neanderthal and—” She spied Hallie over his shoulder, and her lips twitched with humor. “Oh. I see. Well, at least one of us got laid.”
The back of Julian’s neck heated. “Time to go, Nat.”
She’d already started in his direction, but her steps slowed now. “You haven’t called me that since we were in high school.”
Natalie shook herself and kept walking, past Julian and out of the barn, to where Hallie waited. She didn’t turn around once, so she didn’t see August’s regretful expression, but Julian did. It significantly turned down the volume on what he’d been planning to say, though not completely. “Talk to my sister like that again and I’ll break your jaw.”
