Page 27 of Wild and Wanted

Urgently needing to reassure her, Clay took a step towards her – a big mistake because now he was close enough to touch. Close enough to pick out her light scent over the heavier odours of hay and manure. She smelled like sunshine on the pastures. Fresh and grassy. Like wildflowers.

He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t.’

Her chest rose and fell a little quicker and Clay half expected her to retreat, but she didn’t. Her cheeks were flushed but she didn’t shy away. ‘I’m sure you’ve had much more sophisticated kisses.’

Had he? Sure. Clay had been kissed a hundred different ways. He’d been kissed boldly and passionately, he’d been kissed hard and deep, he’d been kissed slow and dirty, he’d been kissed with tongue, he’d been kissed as hands had freely wandered. But he’d never been the recipient of the type of kiss Stevie had lay on him. Unsure and inexperienced but with an innocent enthusiasm that had been such a sexual novelty it had hit him right in the dick.

And that clutch at his shirt, her fingers curling into the fabric like she didn’t know what to do with her hands but she had do something? Not to mention the accompanying little whimper from somewhere in her throat, like she just couldn’t control her bodily reactions or suppress her desire.

That had been hot AF. ‘Maybe,’ he conceded. ‘But I haven’t had one as sweet.’

Stevie’s nose wrinkled in irritation. ‘Sweet.’ She shook her head as her hazy mauve gaze tangled with his in what looked like utter frustration. ‘I’m so sick of being sweet, Clay. Of being sweet, pliant, predicable Stephanie. I want to be more like Yolly. I want to be bold and decisive. I want to not be afraid to ask for what I want.’ She paused, swallowing as if her throat was dry. ‘I want to be daring. I want to be wanton. I want to be Stevie.’

Wanton.

Jesus… Just the thought of this woman going full wanton, full Stevie, was making him dizzy. And he got it. He understood. Stevie wanted to be kissed properly. The way two people kiss when their raw chemistry was so incendiary it sucked up all the oxygen. The kind of chemistry that elevated a kiss from good to sensational. The kind of chemistry that had arced through the air from the moment their eyes had met.

Clay studied her face. The V of her drawn brows, the spray of freckles over the bridge of her nose, the high spots of colour in her cheeks, the way her teeth dug into her bottom lip, the earnest rove of her gaze digging hot talons of desire into his flesh.

Clay knew he could kiss her the way she needed. God knew he’d thought of little else since she’d first taken the initiative. But should he? That was the question. That silver ring was still on her finger, after all.

A kiss didn’t have to mean anything. He’d been the giver and receiver of enough of them to know that and it was what he told himself now even as his subconscious called him on his bullshit, because it would be different with Stevie.

There would be no going back. He wouldn’t want to stop at just one.

Clay had never been one to shy away from risk. He’d literally spent a decade staring risk in the face every time he hopped on the back of a snorting, angry horse, and he’d exhilarated in the thrill of it all.

Consequently, not a lot scared him. But Stevie did. Because, what if he didn’t stop? What then?

Despite all that, Clay found himself taking a step closer the merest slice of air separated their bodies now, the heat coursing through his blood more potent than his fear of the consequences. ‘Okay then,’ he muttered.

Her breath hitched at his words and hell if he didn’t feel that all the way down to his balls. Clay’s gaze dropped to her mouth, which had parted slightly at his nearness. ‘Have you ever been kissed before?’

Another swallow bobbed her throat. ‘Sure. But nothing… cataclysmic.’

Cataclysmic? A smiled kicked up the side of his mouth. ‘No pressure then.’

She didn’t smile back, just lifted an eyebrow. ‘Don’t think you can deliver?’

Clay had to give her top marks for that line. Stevie might be sexually inexperienced with men but she sure knew how to hit him straight in the ego. ‘Oh, darlin’.’ He grinned, completely unconcerned by her husky challenge. ‘I can more than deliver.’

Sliding his hands up her forearms to her elbows, he walked her back a pace until her ass and shoulder blades bumped the wall, her arms pinned to her sides. Removing one hand, Clay flattened it on the wall over her head, his body almost but not quite touching hers as he lowered his mouth close to her ear.

Her intoxicating scent, the husky timbre of her breathing stirred through his blood, turning him hard as stone. ‘This okay?’ he asked, his voice just as husky as her breathing.

She nodded, murmuring, ‘Uh huh,’ on a warm exhalation of breath that fanned across his throat, spreading hot ripples of desire south.

Clay nuzzled her temple, the scent of her shampoo – coconut – dizzying. The brush of her silken hair against his forehead somehow more intimate in this moment than had her hand stroked his dick. ‘You want me to kiss you, Stevie girl?’ he asked, the roughness of his voice actually burring the back of his throat. ‘For research purposes?’ he pressed. ‘For the song?’

Her denial was swift. ‘No.’

Clay smiled against her temple. ‘No?’

‘I want you to kiss me because I think I might die if you don’t.’

Fuuuuck.

Clay knew exactly how she felt. A crazed kind of desperation flowing through his system, demanding to be sated. But hell… no wonder Stevie wrote such amazing songs when she could encapsulate desire – hers and his – in just a handful of words. And her frankness, her honesty, was more stimulating than any titillating dirty talk she could have uttered.