His eyes were on fire as he stared me down. Then he dipped his head once more and licked up the column of my throat. When he looked into my eyes again, I saw hunger. Need. Absolute desire. The kind I knew was mirrored in my own expression. He licked me once more, primal, pushing the fabric of my turtleneck away with his nose.
“Yes,” I said, panting, not entirely sure exactly whether I was asking for permission or granting it. He released my arms, and as my hands tangled into his hair once more, he knelt down in the hay, his mouth still coming halfway up my torso. Dragging his lips down my skin, he left in his wake sweet little kisses, soft and wet. My back arched, pushing my skin closer to his mouth, wanting more, needing more of this man. Leaning his forehead against my breasts, his hands ran down the length of my boots, still thigh high, still muddy, still on.
Then he lifted his head, and with his gaze fixed solidly on me, he ran his hands up the backs of my thighs. The sound of twin Chanel zippers cut through the charged silence. That, and the sound of my heart beating so hard that I feared for my ribs.
“Your jeans are pretty muddy, too,” he murmured, raising one foot, then the next, onto his knee, slipping the boots down and off.
“Isn’t that terrible?” I asked. His eyes were asking me, how far did I want this to go?
Further.
I nodded, offering a smile as I added another zipper to the mix. As he removed my boots, he watched as I thumbed open the button on my jeans and wiggled my hips a little, just barely pushing them down.
“Hold on there.” His hands covered mine, his fingers slipping inside the edge of my jeans and tugging slightly. “Mmm, there we go.”
There had been a time in my life where just the idea of standing naked in front of a man would have made me break out into a cold sweat and would have covered my staying-completely-clothed body with gooseflesh. Naked? And worse yet, in the daytime?
He’d see! He’d see it all! The dimples in my skin, the not-perfectly-smooth thighs, the way my legs pressed together in the middle and likely always would, the way my panties would never just casually sit on my hips, but band inward, denting the soft skin there. Everything so damn soft and squishy.
All true. Every bit of it. And every inch, no matter how soft or squishy, made up me, made up Natalie. But then I learned something important about men; something that almost without fail was always true.
Men love a naked woman. But more than that, they love a confident naked woman. Now, everyone has a type, of course, and preferences about how tall or short, athletic or voluptuous, and there’s no discounting that. But a woman who loves her body, and knows what she wants? There’s nothing sexier than that.
To a real man.
And once I realized this, realized that this exact version of Natalie was how I was supposed to be, and that my body could make a man literally fall to his knees . . . things got a lot more fun for me.
I was standing in the middle of a barn with an almost-stranger, and he was taking my jeans off. And I was encouraging it. Willing it. I didn’t have many rules when it came to dating; I was all equal opportunity when it came to getting mine. But getting naked on the first date? Not typically my scene.
Then again, this wasn’t a date. This was a barn, and I was in it with the man I’d been crushing on for months. Technically, we’d been seeing each other for a long time . . .
Let this happen, I urged myself, and I gave in to everything I was feeling. Which at the moment was supreme satisfaction, watching as his face changed, taking in my lacy panties, emerald green with black scallops.
“Did you wear those for me?” he asked.
“You mean when I woke up this morning thinking all I had on the agenda was a pancake breakfast with councilman Chad Bowman?” Once again, he picked up each foot and placed it on his knee, his fingertips dragging gently along the back of my thigh, teasing and slow.
“So you wore these for pancakes?”
“I wore these for me, you big caveman.” I sighed, then giggled as he tickled at the sensitive skin behind my knee. “Girls mostly buy lingerie for themselves. Guys are usually happy with white cotton panties, as long as they get to see them.”
“I like the lace,” he said, tugging the last of the denim from my leg, easing it over my heel. “But you’re right, your ass would look incredible in white cotton panties.”
He looked equal parts dangerous and sweet, kneeling at my feet with the cockiest grin imaginable. He looked down at my toes, painted bubble-gum pink with teeny red polka dots, my left foot still resting on his knee.
His gaze followed his hands as he ran them slowly back up my leg, wrapping his long, tanned fingers around my calf, kneading the muscle there. Coaxing my leg to butterfly out slightly, he slid his hands higher up my leg, one holding on to my knee while the other spanned across my thigh, my fair Irish skin a strong contrast to his darker hands. Some of his knuckles looked like they’d been broken before. Imperfectly perfect, and I let out the softest sigh when I saw how incredible they looked on my leg.
He leaned down, dropped a wet kiss on the top of my kneecap, his finger tracing the edge of a scar there. “A brawl?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “With my brother. I was seven; he was nine. I’d stolen Darth Vader. He had every right to try and retake it with his lightsaber.” He smiled into my skin as I continued, dropping kisses all around. “Scars are like a map, you know? They’re little clues, hints about the person who wears them.”
“Maybe I’ll learn something about this gorgeous girl with the great”—he paused for effect—“big ass.”
For someone who didn’t talk much, when he did, he chose his words well. But before I could ask him anything else, the kisses he’d been languishing across my knee began to move farther up my thigh. His breath was warm on my skin, making it pebble, and that same low sound came from the back of his throat, making me shiver once more. He gripped my leg harder, seeming to ground himself in the touch.
He looked up at me, and now I was the one sweeping his hair back from his face.
“Are we really doing this?” he asked, his voice the slightest bit shaky. Was he thinking the same things I was a moment before? Too fast, too soon, too perfect, too yes exactly we are doing this?
As I looked into his eyes, I knew I wanted this, right now.
“Some girls would say no, it’s too soon, will he respect me tomorrow, what will he think of me . . . all thoughts that should be going through my head right now.”
“What is going through your head right now?” he asked, grasping my bottom in his hands. He tugged me closer to him, one hand spread across the small of my back. I moved my foot to the ground, feeling the hay slipping between my toes. He planted two kisses at the tops of my thighs, high up where any thigh gap had bid bye-bye a million years ago.
“Honestly?”
“I think now would be the perfect time for honesty, don’t you?” he asked, nudging me closer, his nose tickling at my lace.
“So honesty means I’ve got to admit that I’ve daydreamed about exactly this—with you on your knees in front of me.”
His deep chuckle signaled that I was right on track.
“And I’m thinking that in that daydream, you’re telling me that I’m beautiful.”
He bit me, hard, on the inside of my left thigh.
“You are beautiful.” He pushed my legs apart with his broad shoulders. “Especially now, with your hair all messed and you in your panties and that turtleneck, looking all fifties pinup girl.”
“That was the last time a girl with curves had it so good.” I sighed, throwing my arms over my head and arching my back, stretching and feeling my body beginning to go all gooey and boneless.
“You better tell me the rest of that daydream,” he said into my skin.
I closed my eyes, overwhelmed with the sensations running wild. A sharp smack to my behind brought
me back.
“Ah-ah, Pinup Girl, don’t go getting lazy on me.” My head snapped back to look at him in surprise. He reached up and brought my hands down to my hips. “Take your panties off.”
Oh.
Chapter 11
Covering my hands with his, we both slipped them down down down until they were at my feet, and once more he gently lifted each foot in turn, sliding my panties off and laying them carefully to the side. A gentleman. His eyes following the action, only now did he look at me. And I watched as his eyes took on an even deeper tone, narrowing, lids heavy. His mouth parted, and his tongue snuck out to dab carefully at his lower lip, literally licking his lips as he watched me standing there, bare. The slowest of grins appeared, breaking across his face like a sunrise, the happiest, lustiest sunrise I’d ever seen.
And then his gaze found mine once more, and he rose, slowly standing until he was positively towering over me. My back to the stall, I stared up at him, his frame crowding me against the slats, and I could feel my turtleneck snag on the rough wood. He tugged me against him, all strong hands and entangling arms and then his lips were on mine again, and I had to hold my breath, it was so fiery, so fierce, so fantastically frantic.
A switch had been thrown, and now we both scrambled at each other, my hands digging in, trying to find purchase on his ridiculous shoulders. As he kissed me, he explored, his fingertips dancing up and under my sweater, then back down again, knees pushing my own wide.
I tugged my head back, my lips leaving his in a wrench that made him growl, but I wanted to see his face as he touched me for the first time and . . . oh, there it was.
He growled again as I groaned, his fingers finding me already slippery and wet and ready for him. I tugged at his shirt, needing to see him, needing to see more of him, but his hands, his hands! Those rough, callused fingers were gentle and strong at the same time, swirling and twirling and finding the spot that would spiral me out of my head.
But if I was going out of my head, I needed to see him first. I pulled at his shirt, and he finally left me long enough to tug it over his head, and my eyes widened as I took him in.
Those tattoos—the ones I’d been staring at for weeks at the farmers’ market, the ones that peeked out from under his T-shirts and trailed down his arms—were just the tip of the iceberg. Because underneath it all, where it was just Oscar and skin, was a world of paint. Bright, angry colors bloomed across his chest, each pectoral its own canvas for the art that had been exquisitely inked onto his skin. Bold lines, panels of images and symbols and here and there a word. A moon. The stars. An enormous oak tree stretched across his abdomen and curled upward over his heart, the branches curving in, surrounding a bloodred sun.
Beautiful. But before I could admire him properly, he picked me up, wrapped my legs around his waist, and pressed me up against the stall once more. Holding my weight entirely in one hand, he slipped the other down in between us again and began to circle my clit, low and slow and maddeningly perfect. I slapped at the slats, he circled faster. I cried out, he dipped lower. One finger, then two, slid inside me, driving me, my hips beginning to thrust, riding his hand as his thumb pressed down . . .
“Oh. Yes,” I said, sparks of light beginning to crackle at the edge of my vision, which was focused entirely on this man, this man who was groaning while he watched me begin to come undone, thrashing, undulating, so very close.
“There she is,” he murmured, and I came. Came hard and fast, pushing him away and pulling him closer at the same time.
When I opened my eyes, he was watching me, head cocked slightly to the side, a slow, sexy grin creeping across his face.
More. I needed more.
“My jeans,” I managed to say.
“Your jeans?”
“Condom. Back pocket.”
“Yeah?”
“Immediately.”
He untangled my legs and set me gently on my feet, and was in my jeans and back again with the condom before I could say hey, this hay is slippery.
He wrapped his arms around me again, pulling me fully against him, and I relished barely coming up to his collarbone. He was so tall, so very tall, that I felt dainty and small and entirely surrounded by this man. Plus, I was eye level to the most beautiful collarbone ever imagined. I kissed that collarbone, planting kisses all along the swirls of ink there, while he held me tight, both hands firmly on my bottom, pressing me against him.
“Aren’t you glad I came to your scrimmage thingie today?” I asked, sneaking one hand down and finding his zipper.
“Any other time I’d tell you why it’s not a thingie, but yes,” he replied, eyes widening when I reached inside. “Not really going to argue with you right now.”
“What do you want to be doing with me right now?” I purred, using my other hand to push down the edges of his jeans, watching as his abdomen flexed and that wonderful V appeared, delineating his hips, and sweet Christ, this man was a work of art.
“I want you on top of me,” he said, kneeling once more and pulling me along with him, tearing at the condom wrapper with his teeth and coaxing me to straddle his legs. He pulled himself forward from his jeans and gave one long stroke, rubbing the head with this thumb, the same thumb that had just sent me over the moon and back again, and I rolled my hips reflexively. “I want you all over me.”
Rolling the condom on, he grasped me once more, positioning me over his body, holding himself at the base with one lucky hand while he looked up at me through heavy lids. “What’s your last name?”
“Hmm?” I murmured, lost at the sight of him in his own hand.
“Your last name?” he repeated, his eyes full of mischief.
“Grayson.” I was almost shaking with need as he ran his other hand up and over my bottom, poised just above him.
“Nice to officially meet you, Natalie Grayson,” he whispered, and thrust up inside me.
I threw back my head, my eyes clamped shut as I slid down, taking him into me, stretching to allow him to fit, because he was big, so big, proportionate to the rest of him. Crazy hot, crazy thick, and my back arched to allow me to push down more, harder, faster—I wanted it all from him.
His groan was as big as he was, powerful and echoing through the quiet barn, full of want and need, exactly the way I felt after lusting after this man for so long, wondering and wishing—and now here he was, perfectly inside.
But now . . . he was moving. Sliding, slipping, guiding my hips as he retreated, then thrust deep once more. I cried out, my muscles slick but swollen and so very tight against him.
Lifting my head once more I stared down into his eyes, the gray receding and the blue taking over, intense and focused, the same wonder that was no doubt in my eyes reflected in his.
This felt amazing. This felt incredible. This felt different.
I rocked, he rolled. I circled my hips, he circled his. In sync, wonderfully in sync we were, and I gasped when I could feel him, so strong underneath me, inside me, filling me up and making me shiver-shake.
His hands clutched at my hips, tight on my bottom, lifting and guiding me as I rode him hard, impossibly hard. But he was so very strong that I could let myself go, really let him feel all of me.
“Beautiful,” he groaned as I sank down once more, all the breath in my body leaving at once. “So fucking beautiful.”
I already loved that he thought I was beautiful.
He fucked me frantic on the floor, legs and arms tangled and grasping, and he said my name over and over again as his hips sped up, thrusting harder and faster now, his fingertips digging into my skin so hard it brought tears to my eyes. Good burning tears, the sheer strength that he possessed and the way he knew exactly how much I could take, like we’d been doing this for years.
And I knew in that moment, when he threw his head back and came with a roar that made the walls shake and the veins pop out
on his neck, raw and needy, that I could do this for years and never, ever get enough.
Because then, when he came down and I leaned forward, he wrapped me in those same strong arms, cuddling me close to him, no space between us.
His hand, so rough and worn, tenderly caressed my cheek and I nuzzled into it as he held me.
“Where did you come from?” His voice was gruff, raw.
I blew on a strand of hair that had fallen in my eyes and gave him a tired, extremely satisfied smile. “The West Village.”
“Ridiculous,” I said.
“Hmm?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I still don’t get it,” Oscar said, raising an eyebrow in question.
I was standing just inside the barn door, wearing nothing but his red plaid flannel shirt and a pair of his work boots, waiting for the cows to come home. Literally. We’d spent the better part of the afternoon messing around in the barn like teenagers in heat, and now it was time for the moo cows’ dinner. As they lined up in fairly orderly fashion and came trotting down their path toward the barn, I watched as Oscar, wearing his thermal shirt and half-buttoned jeans, waved them on down.
“Who gets fucked in a barn, then brings the cows in from the meadow?”
“The pasture,” he corrected, and I rolled my eyes while I rerolled the sleeves of his flannel. I quite liked the feel of that worn-so-thin-it-was-silky flannel against my naked skin. I also liked how delicate his extra-extra-large shirt made my wrists look.
“I’m just saying it was warm in the barn.” I shivered a little, the setting sun taking the warmth of the day with it.
“The house is warm, too. Go on inside and I’ll be right behind you.”
“Promise?” I winked naughtily, and he looked back at me just as naughtily. I danced across the yard, taking care to avoid all the puddles. It was hard to swish and sway wearing size-fourteen work boots, but I did my best. And it worked—by the time I made it to the back porch, there was a dairy farmer plastered to my backside.