Page 15 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
He pulls me closer, his arm wrapping around my waist, and the kiss deepens. Slow and hungry and completely unashamed. Rain soaks us both. I don't care.
His mouth moves against mine like he's memorizing something he once lost and has no intention of losing again.
His hands slid down my waist. My hips. He grips and pulls me flush against him and the contact hits me everywhere at once. The fence rail digs into my lower back.
His body is hard against mine, chest, hips, thighs, and I can feel exactly what this is doing to him.
A sound leaves my throat that I didn't give permission for.
Rowan groans against my mouth. Low. Rough. The sound of a man who has been holding himself in check and just lost the argument.
His mouth drags from my lips to my jaw. The curve of my throat. His teeth graze the place where my pulse hammers and my head tips back and the rain hits my face and I don't care about any of it except the heat of his mouth on my skin.
My hands pulled at his shirt. Untucking it. My fingers find bare skin above his belt, hot and rain-slick and real, and he shudders. Actually shudders.
The controlled, grumpy, unreadable man shudders under my hands like I've cracked him open.
"Calla." My name breaks against my throat. Not a warning. A surrender.
His hand slides under the hem of my flannel. Palm flat against my bare waist. His thumb traces the curve of my ribs, and I arch into him and the wire behind me groans under our combined weight.
I want more. I want his hands everywhere. I want the shirt off and the rain on both of us and nothing between his skin and mine.
I reach for his collar.
He catches my wrist. Gently. His breathing is ragged. His forehead drops to mine.
"Not here."
The words come out wrecked. Nothing controlled about them.
I open my eyes. His are dark. Pupils blown. He looks like a man fighting himself and losing badly.
"Why."
"Because if I don't stop now, I won't stop at all. And you deserve better than a fence line in the rain."
My body screams at me to argue. Every nerve I have is lit and aching and furious at the concept of stopping.
But I see his hands trembling where they grip my waist. I see what it costs him to hold still. And I understand.
He's not pulling away because he doesn't want this. He's pulling away because he wants it too much to do it wrong.
I press my palm flat against his chest. His heart slams against my hand. Fast. Desperate. Nothing like the still expression on his face.
"This isn't over," I say.
"No." His voice is raw. "It isn't."
He steps back. One pace. Just enough space to breathe.
The cold rushes in between us like a punishment.
I grip the fence post to keep myself upright. My legs are not entirely trustworthy now. My shirt is half untucked and my skin is still burning everywhere he touched me.
I look like a woman who just got kissed within an inch of her life against a fence post in a rainstorm. Because I did.
Rowan runs a hand over his face. Rain drips from his jaw. He looks at the ridge road and goes still.
