She’s kissing me back, wild and untamed. She’s clawing at me now, nails on my back, digging through my shirt, and I’m gripping her so hard I feel I might break her.
Quickly, I pull her shirt over her head and toss it on the hay. “Come on,” I groan against her neck. I gently push her back until she’s lying in the straw and shimmying herself out of her denim cut-offs. No knickers, of course. I’ll never tire of the sight of her beneath me, so perfect, every swoop and soft curve that my lips and tongue and hands are so ridiculously addicted to. Her cunt is a fucking treasure, and for this moment, for every moment I’ve spent with her, I feel like it all belongs to me.
It’s a startling thought, the idea that she could. It’s not just that it feels like she’s mine. It’s the idea that maybe, in another world, in another life, she could be.
I pinch my eyes shut, willing the feeling away. But it doesn’t go. It just morphs, turns, shifts, into raw desire to have her in every way I can, to make her see just how it is.
“Did you bring a condom?” she asks me, breathless.
I shake my head in frustration. I wasn’t really thinking with my hangover. “No,” I say regretfully. “I didn’t.”
“I’m on the pill,” she says. Her eyes are clouded with lust, but she’s still thinking straight. “And I’ve been tested. Clean.”
I nod. “Same.” I had more than a few scares when I was younger. I wasn’t always with the best people, doing the best things. I’ve been more than careful ever since.
“Okay,” she says softly, and I see it in her eyes, the look that tells me it will be different this time. To feel her skin against skin. To be so completely bare with her.
I have to take a deep breath, steady myself. Without a barrier between us, I don’t know how long I’ll have before I lose myself inside her.
But who am I kidding? I’ve already lost myself to her.
I move between her spread legs. It’s almost painful, this desire, this need. Seeing my bare cock hard and ready, her cunt open, pink and soft—I feel like I’m dying a beautiful death a million times over.
I tell myself to get over it but words don’t matter. Reason and logic, same. In this moment, I want in deep and to never let go.
Slowly, so slowly, I ease myself into her as she raises her hips, pushing toward me herself, wanting that deeper purchase. Her mouth opens wider the further I get, her skin sliding against my skin like endless silk.
I kiss her, melting my mouth into hers, wanting to be as close as possible.
“This won’t take long,” I nearly whimper against her lips. “I’m sorry.”
“Apologize afterward,” she tells me, her breath so airy and soft with pleasure that it nearly derails me.
But I know I won’t. I’ll make sure there’s nothing to apologize for.
Our faces are just inches apart as I slowly pull out and ease myself into her. Our gaze never breaks. Hers is full of lust and wonder, as if she’s seeing me for the first time. I can only hope she likes what she sees, that I’m enough for her. When our hips meet, it makes me still, and I have to suck in my breath to regain control. There’s something about her that makes me want to completely lose it and I’ve been losing my mind since the day I met her.
She wraps her legs around my waist and rocks her hips backward, each movement pulling me further and further into her. Her hands are at my back and pushing into my muscles. Our skin moves against each other like we are one.
“Fuck, love,” I croak out, sucking along her neck, to her breasts. My tongue teases around the hardened peak of her nipple and I pull it into my mouth with one long, hard draw. Her moan is so loud, so uninhibited that I feel like a fucking king. I barely notice that we’re in a hayloft, in a barn, somewhere in California. I only notice her and the warmth, that damn, intoxicating warmth of being really, truly inside of her, of feeling her in every way I can.
“Harder,” she says, arching her back. “Fuck. Lachlan.”
My name on her lips is a tonic. I piston my hips to drive into her deeper, my knees burning from the hay as I pound her again and again and again. Her perfect tits bounce with each thorough thrust, and suddenly there are no thoughts. No pain. No nothing, and yet everything. That feeling of falling, of realizing how good it can fucking be when you actually care about someone.
And I care for her. More than I should, more than I could ever admit.
“Lachlan,” she whispers to me but never finishes her sentence. She just repeats my name. Like I’m revered, like I’m her religion.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The flush on her face spreads to her chest and her legs quiver around my waist. She’s holding onto me like I’m about to take flight and she doesn’t want to be left behind.
I go to slip my hand over her clit, to give her the boost, but she’s already there. She cries out loudly, hips jerking upward, body shaking like a minor quake. She’s so unbelievable when she’s coming, this pulsing, writhing spirit, and I’m the cause of all of it. I’m the one who brings this little creature to her knees, to the edge.
And she does the same to me.
My orgasm sneaks up on me, like being hit from behind. It’s devastating. Stunning. I know I’m loud when I come. I know I’m groaning and grunting loudly, but from the way she’s gasping for breath and still holding tight, she feels it. I want her to feel it. To feel me.
I collapse against her, sweat dripping off my brow and over my nose. I can hardly breathe but I don’t care. I’m shuddering on the inside, completely unraveled.
This woman. This beautiful woman that I’ve just come inside of, this woman whose gorgeous, elegant neck I’m kissing because it’s the only thing to do.
I can’t leave her. I just can’t.
I stay inside her for as long as possible, until she starts to adjust underneath me. When I pull out of her, the loss is deeper than I thought it would be.
I brush the hair back from her damp forehead. “Hi,” I say softly. Because I feel like we’re meeting again for the first time.
“Hi,” she says lazily, breaking into a smile. Her hands ghost up and down my back, as if she can’t quite believe I’m here.
“I rather enjoyed that,” I tell her.
Her smile is coy. “So did I.”
“I could do that again.”
And now, now she looks pained. She swallows, running her fingertips, light and soft, up to my neck. “I could too.”
I take a deep breath, throwing all decorum away. “I don’t want to say goodbye.”
She blinks, as if this idea is something new. After a beat, she says, “Neither do I.”
So then what do we do?
The answer is nothing.
But I don’t want it to be nothing.
***
“Are you ready?” Kayla asks me, surveying the hotel room one last time.
I nod, though I’m the furthest thing from ready. When we woke up, we spent as much time as possible in bed before we finally had to get going. Now we’re running a little bit late, which doesn’t bode well for me when I have a plane to catch.
Still, I can’t blame myself for dragging my feet. I’m trying to hold onto the seconds and they’re just slipping through our hands.
I grab the dog crate, my duffel bag, and we head out to the car. I planned to head back into the hotel to say goodbye to Bram and the others, but the four of them are waiting outside for us, suitcases packed.
“Sorry we couldn’t make breakfast,” I tell Bram as we come up to them.
“Understood,” he says, and I can’t see his eyes underneath his Ray-bans, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume he has that same sentimental look as he did yesterday during lunch. The last thing I need is for someone to draw attention to the whole going away factor. I fucking hate goodbyes; in fact my whole life I’ve just ghosted in those situations.
It wouldn’t have been right to just leave without saying anything, but even so, we make it quick. I hug my cousins, tell them it was great to see them again, and make sure they know I mean it. I kiss the hands of Steph and Nicola, who still regard me in the same way that people look at a pit bull, untrusting and on edge, and get in the car before anyone has a chance to get sappy on me.