Page 32 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
The words land like a match dropping.
I close the distance in one step.
My mouth finds hers and this kiss is nothing like the ones before it. No restraint. No careful holding back. Eight years compressed into heat and pressure and her sharp inhale against my lips.
She responds instantly. Her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. I walk her back until her shoulders meet the shed wall. My hands find her waist, then her hips.
She's softer than I remember. Warmer. Real in a way that makes every year I stay away feel like the waste it was.
I pull back just enough to look at her. The lantern light catches the flush in her cheeks, the dark of her eyes, the way she's looking at me with everything she usually keeps locked away.
"Don't stop this time," she says.
Something in my chest breaks open.
I kiss her again. Slower now. My hands move up her sides, learning the shape of her in the gold light, and she makes a small sound against my mouth that I feel all the way to my boots.
Her fingers found the hem of my shirt. She doesn't rush it. Her palms spread flat across my stomach, my ribs, moving upward like she's taking inventory of something she's been denied for too long.
I give her the time. I let her have it. After eight years the least I can do is not hurry this.
"Rowan."
"I've got you."
Her hands pulled my shirt free. Her fingers spread across my stomach, my ribs, moving upward, and every point of contact burns.
I press her harder against the wall. She hooks one leg around my hip and the angle changes everything. Her body against mine, no space left, the thin layers between us not thin enough.
"Don't talk," she says. Her hands find my belt. "Don't you dare talk."
Her fingers work the buckle and my hands are shaking. Actually shaking. Because this is her and this is real and I have wantedthis woman for so long that the reality of her hands on me is more than my body knows how to process.
I reach for the strap of her undershirt. Pull it down. My mouth follows the line of her shoulder, and she gasps and her fingers dig into my arms hard enough to leave marks I'll feel tomorrow.
Good. I want to feel them tomorrow.
She pushes my shirt off. Her palms flatten against my chest, and she looks at me in the lantern light with an expression that has nothing guarded left in it. No armor. No distance. Just want, open and honest and aimed straight at me.
I lift her onto the workbench. She wraps around me and the angle pulls a sound from her throat that I will hear in my sleep for the rest of my life.
"Now." Her mouth against my ear. Not asking.
I stop thinking.
There is nothing careful about what follows. Nothing polished or patient. Just two people who ran out of reasons to wait and I don't have the self-control left to be gentle about it.
The workbench creaks beneath us. Her back arches against the wall. My hands grip her hips hard enough that my knuckles go white and she pulls me closer instead of pushing me away.
She bites my shoulder when the intensity crests. I bury my face in her neck and say her name like it's the only word I know.
And for that one moment there is nothing else. No ridge, no town, no eight years. When she comes it's my name she says. Deliberate. Like she's marking something.
Just her. Just this. Just the sharp, shattering collapse of every wall we've been building since I walked back into her barn.
Afterward we stay pressed together in the dim light. Her forehead against my collarbone. Both of us breathe hard. Her fingers trace lazy circles on the back of my neck, and I feel settled in a way I haven't felt since I left this ridge.
Her laugh comes quiet against my skin. "The workbench."
