Page 37 of Wild and Wanted

Now freed, her hands found his hair, pushing through the curly shag of it, twisting her fingers in the thick mass, holding him fast as she kissed him back. Just as hard, just as hot, just as hungry.

His groan rolled through his chest in a subterranean rumble that sounded entirely unholy. Like a grizzly waking from hibernation needing to eat. It was utterly uncivilised and Stevie kissed him deeper, snatching it for herself, wanting to absorb it, revelling in the fact that she’d drawn it from his lips.

Stevie Everhart – country music singer, songwriter, Grammy winner.

Virgin.

The groan was still vibrating through her bones when his hand slid from her hip, his fingers inching down the side of her dress, ruching the fabric up until his palm hit bare skin and flattened, smoothing upward, taking her skirt with it. His thumb was a lazy stroke against the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh until he reached the crease where her leg met her torso and the flat of his thumb whispered across the gusset of her underwear where she was so wet and achy and needy.

It was the most featherlight of touches but he might as well have hit her with one of the ranch’s cattle prods as it convulsed in a sharp wave of electric pleasure from the point of contact to the tight tips of her nipples. So sharp she startled, her body bucking, a gasp separating her mouth from his.

No man had ever touched her so daringly, so intimately – it was shockingly good. Surely too good not to be resoundingly bad. No wonder people ruined their lives for this.

She’d had the tiniest of tastes and she was enthralled.

But Clay was looking at her as if he’d just been plunged into an ice bath. ‘Fuck,’ he muttered under his breath as he snatched his hand away, her skirt falling down, his palm back at her hip. ‘Sorry.’ He dropped his forehead to the crook of her neck, his erratic breathing swirling eddies of hot air against the thick beat of her pulse. ‘I’m going too fast.’

Stevie frowned. What? No. It had just been a shock because it was new and unexpected. It had caught her unawares. She didn’t want him to stop.

‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

Trying to get her erratic breathing under control, Stevie shook her head. ‘It’s fine,’ she assured in a rush, excitable cells still clashing through her veins like pinballs in a machine. ‘It was just a… surprise. I’ve not been…’

Oh God, Stevie, shut up. Don’t tell him that.

A hot sigh flurried against her neck as Clay pushed away from her, taking a small step back, and Stevie thanked the Lord she was against the wall because without all his solid hardness pinning her upright, her lust-slugged legs just weren’t up to the job.

He shoved a hand through his hair. ‘How far have you… gone, before?’

Stevie’s cheeks heated and she ducked her head, pleased for the relative gloom of the shed to cloak her embarrassment. It was like… being at the doctor. Tell me, Ms Everhart, how many sexual partners have you had?

‘Hey.’ His soft voice accompanied the slide of his index finger under her chin, lifting it to meet his gaze. ‘It’s okay.’ He smiled. ‘It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.’

‘Easy for you to say, Casanova Clay.’

He chuckled and it brushed like the soft cotton of his shirt against her skin. ‘We’re all virgins at some point, Stevie girl.’

Stevie girl. She liked it when he called her that. She liked it when he called her that as his thumb stroked her cheek, giving her the courage to spill her meagre experience. ‘Just… kissing and some…’

Oh dear God, it had just moved from embarrassing to excruciating. She swallowed, looking for the right word. Fondling came to mind, which she rejected outright. ‘Second-base stuff,’ she finished, looking at a patch of dark beyond his shoulder because all she could think of now was fondling, which sounded like her father’s great-aunt Mable who used terms like intercourse and monthlies on the regular.

‘So a guy’s never touched you… there, before?’

Oh Lordy, Lordy. Kill me now. Stevie was so mortified, all she could do was shake her head. She knew if she was mature enough to have decided Clay was the guy to pop her cherry then she should be mature enough to have a frank conversation about it but – yeesh.

Maturity sucked.

‘Alright.’ He nodded as his finger slid from her chin, clearly satisfied before he smiled again, so calm. So unfazed. While she was dying inside. ‘New plan. We’re going to slow this right down.’

Stevie blinked. Slow it down? That sounded like a terrible plan. She still throbbed between her legs where that fleeting caress had landed and if he thought she didn’t need more of that in the worst kind of way he clearly didn’t know women as well as his reputation implied.

Her eyes seeking his, she stared at him full-on now. ‘I’m not going to break, Clay. I’m a virgin, not spun glass.’

A fleeting smile touched his mouth before flitting away. ‘I know that,’ he said with such certainty it bolstered Stevie’s confidence. ‘And trust me, when I finally get you under me, I have no intention of treating you like spun glass.’

His bold statement was like a grenade going off in all her erogenous zones, visions of him over her, pounding into her, taunting her inner eye. Stevie wanted that. Whatever it was, however it came – she wanted that.

‘But when you skip straight to the main event you miss out on a lot of the good stuff. And I really want to show you the good stuff.’