Page 37

He set me down. My back met the inside of the door.

I reached for him. He caught both my hands and pressed them against the wood above my head and held them there with one of his. With the other, he unzipped my jacket, slowly, all the way down. The sound of it was loud in the quiet cabin.

“All night,” he said, low and rough. “I spent all night in the barn, working and trying not to think about doing this.”

“I was right there,” I whispered. “You could have come up.”

“I know.” He let go of my wrists and pushed my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms. It fell to the floor. Then he caught my wrists again and held them above my head.

His hand slid up under my sweater. He spread it flat on my stomach, then slowly moved it higher, and higher, until his thumb brushed the underside of my breast through my bra. My breath hitched. I pulled against his grip on my wrists, and he held me there.

“Not yet,” he murmured.

He kissed my neck. My jaw. The spot under my ear that he’d found on the stairs and on the tailgate and in my bed, the one that made my knees give out every time. He took his time with it. He kissed it and sucked it and scraped it lightly with his teeth until I was panting and pressing my hips toward him, and he just held me against the door and kept going.

His hand found the button on my jeans.

He opened it. He slid the zipper down, slowly, and the sound of it made me shiver. Then he slipped his hand inside, down over my stomach, under the waistband of my underwear.

“Shepherd,” I gasped.

“Tell me to stop.”

“Don’t you dare.”

His fingers slid down between my legs and found me wet. He groaned into my neck. He stroked me, slow and light, just the tips of his fingers, back and forth, and my whole body shuddered against the door.

“You’re soaked,” he said against my skin.

“It’s your fault.”

“I know.” He pressed harder, circling my clit with two fingers, and my knees buckled. He held me up with his hips pinning mine to the door and his hand still holding my wrists above my head. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything but feel it.

“Look at me,” he said.

I opened my eyes. He was watching my face, his gray-blue eyes dark and fierce in the orange glow from the stove. He watched what his hand was doing to me.

He slid one finger inside me. Then two. He pressed the heel of his hand against my clit and curled his fingers forward, slow and deliberate, and I cried out.

“That’s it,” he said softly. “Right there?”

“Yes.” I could barely breathe. “Yes, right there, don’t—please⁠—”

He didn’t stop. He kept the same slow, steady rhythm, his fingers deep inside me and his palm grinding against my clit, his eyes on mine the whole time. I couldn’t look away from him. I tried to move my hips, and he held me still against the door so I couldn’t do anything but take it.

It built so fast. It built low and hot and impossible, and I was trembling, and I heard myself begging him in a voice I didn’t recognize.

“Come for me, Hazel,” he said. “Let me see it.”

I came apart against the door.

It tore through me, hard enough that I cried out his name and my whole body bowed toward him. He held me through it. He kept his hand moving, gentler and gentler, his eyes on my face, until the last shudder rolled through me and I sagged against the door, gasping.

He let go of my wrists. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. My legs had stopped working.

“Oh my gosh,” I said into his jacket.

He laughed softly. He pulled his hand out of my jeans, wrapped both arms around me, and held me while I caught my breath. His heart was pounding against my cheek.