Page 44 of Wild and Wanted

Not that she had, of course, but she’d learned and experienced more about her body in the last half an hour than she had in her entire twenty-two years of life. And she would never forget this. Not as long as she lived.

‘Hey.’

As she tuned in some more, her head lolled to the side to find Clay propped up on his elbow looking down at her, watching her, a smile warming his face.

A very smug smile.

‘I think you might have passed out there for a while,’ he teased.

Stevie laughed. ‘I think I did too.’

But the laughter soon died and the malaise vanished as she remembered the intensity of her orgasm. Had she been too… much? Were the other women he’d been with more… dainty? Maybe that smile was amused rather than smug?

‘I’m sorry, was I too… loud or… crazy… or greedy?’ God, she’d just laid there and taken it, spread out on the blanket like some kind of starfish.

Why hadn’t she… participated more?

‘No.’ Clay shook his head. ‘You were perfection. And you should never apologise for taking what you want.’

God… she had wanted. She’d wanted Clay in an utterly irrational way. She still did. How else could she explain lying here so brazenly with her shirt open, bared to him like this and not giving a single damn?

Lifting a hand, she traced it along his jawline to the fall of hair at his temple, pushing it back, her fingers delighting in the glide of it over her knuckles. ‘Is that what you do? Take what you want?’

How freaking liberating.

He shut his eyes as her nails gently stroked his scalp, and Stevie drew in a shuddery breath at Clay luxuriating in her touch. When he opened them again, she was bathed in liquid amber light. ‘Yes,’ he finally responded. ‘Wherever possible.’ He turned his head into the caress, his lips brushing the inside of her wrist as he murmured, ‘You don’t?’

She gave a half laugh. ‘No. I ask politely.’ Yolly had been the bold one.

Gathering her hand, he kissed her palm before bringing it to his chest, his gaze holding her captive. ‘You don’t have to be polite with me. What do you want, Stevie?’

Oh God… her entire body quaked at the possibilities. ‘Can I… touch you?’

He groaned and fell back against the blanket, sliding his arm under her shoulders and scooping her to him, her head finding his chest, their hands still joined, every inch of Stevie’s body smooshed into the side of his. The steady thump of his heart was like a metronome below her ear, his scent a mix of soap and hay, and Stevie revelled in how solid he was, how… masculine.

A fact backed up by the significant bulge she could see testing the strength of his fly.

Stevie thanked the universe she was already lying down because the mere thought of what was behind that zipper was making her all swoony.

‘Is that a yes or a no?’ she prompted, raising herself up on her elbow to look at him.

He smiled, his gaze drifting to the slight curve of a breast not fully covered by the open flaps of her shirt before picking up a strand of her hair and watching as he wound it around his finger. ‘You are touching me.’

Stevie rolled her eyes. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

His gaze slid to hers. ‘Where do you want to touch me, Stevie girl?’

There was a challenge in his eyes which emboldened her – to a point anyway. She wished she could say the words but she wasn’t quite there yet. Instead she glanced down his body, zeroing in on his erection before returning to meet his eyes. ‘Where do you think?’

Her cheeks flushed at her daring, but she held his gaze.

‘You want to touch my cock?’

His voice was rough, a physical scrape along every one of Stevie’s nerve endings which revelled in his easy use of the word cock. ‘Yes.’ She swallowed, her throat dry as the dust in the cattle yards. And then, suddenly stupidly anxious about her boldness, she added, ‘Please.’

You don’t have to be polite around me. That’s what he’d said. But it was so damned ingrained and she was nervous, and that always made her reach for the familiar.

Thankfully he chuckled at her manners and his hand holding hers captive against his chest loosened, allowing her free rein. With her pulse fluttering madly, her hand skimmed down his body, her breath expelling in a rasp as she reached pay dirt, her fingers tracing the rigid thickness encased in its denim prison.