Page 55 of Total Jane Wreck

“Whether you’re worth her time.”

He chuckles under his breath. Betty’s ears swivel toward the sound. “Good sign,” I tell him. “She likes your laugh.”

Chet looks sideways at me. “Do you—like my laugh?”

“Whatever Betty likes, I like. Now, focus.”

I show him how to stroke down the bridge of her nose, how to read the slow blink that means she’s relaxed. We move down the row—Miss Adele, Copper Cash, Freckles, Tapioca, Rosie, Spitfire, Gatsby. At each stall I give him something small to do: offer a flat palm, stand at the shoulder instead of head-on, breathe slow.

“We need to give them all their carrots,” I say, pulling a handful from the feed bucket. “No playing favorites.”

Chet’s face breaks into a crooked smile. “That would be wrong.”

I rise onto my tiptoes and kiss him. He tastes like wintergreen, which I’ve decided is my favorite flavor.

We work our way down the stalls, gifting each horse a carrot. Then Chet’s fingers close around my wrist. “Come help me check the side entrance,” he says, in a voice that means something else entirely.

Around the hay-stacked corner, he pulls me into the shadow, and we kiss again, slower this time, one hand braced against the wall above my head.

He pulls back. Studies me. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I say.

Something passes between us—wordless yet soul-stirring. His hand finds my waist, and he draws me in with the unhurried confidence of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing, which is, frankly, unfair.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” I tell him.

“Doing what?”

“Being like this.”

“Being like what?” he murmurs.

“Nothing—just a shamelessly sexy cowboy billionaire.”

“Always so clever.” His laughter’s low, and I feel it more than I hear it. Then his hands are moving, tracing the length of me, and I stop being clever about anything at all.

I press into him—his chest, his stomach, the unmistakable fact of how much he wants me—and whatever doubts I carried here from book club dissolve completely. Like they were never really mine to begin with.

Chet’s hands find my waist, unhurried, as if he has all night and intends to use it. But that just increases my urgency to be as close to him as possible. I cling to him, and he kisses me with intention, unlike anyone I’ve ever been with. Chet’s both meticulous and sensual. He’s taken the time to understand what pleasure is and how to create it.

But this kiss is different, desperate, almost ugly with want. Maybe we’re both trying to prove something, that we can out-love, out-hurt, outrun whatever’s nipping at our heels. My hands wind in his hair. His fingers slide up under my shirt, dry and searching, then linger at my waistband, tentative in a way that makes me want to scream with impatience.

Somewhere outside, a branch thwacks against the metal barn siding.

“Grace could walk in,” I whisper, but my knuckles are already digging into Chet’s back.

He laughs into my mouth. “Let her.”

Chet’s all heat and urgency, and so am I. God, I want him so bad, it’s akin to something gnawing through my chest.

We barely make it ten feet before my back’s flush to the barn wall, his hands caging mine above my head. He hikes me up by the thighs, easy as hoisting a bale of hay. My knees lock around his hips, and I feel myself tilt. I grind into him, the ache so total it borders on relief. The only light comes from Chet’s porch, slicing through warped plexiglass, painting stripes across his forearms. Our shadows join on the hay-dusted floor.

Chet rakes his nails down my back, and I gasp. He smothers it with a kiss so deep I forget my own name. All our inhibitions are stripped bare as we come together, hard and fast.

I cry out.

Because a face—a young woman’s face—peers through the barn’s window. She’s watching us.