Page 77 of Take Me Home

“What?” Her hands slipped up under the back of his jacket, fingertips pressing against his flannel shirt. He inched closer, and she made an approving sound in the back of her throat that made him want to do anything, everything she wanted.

“You do know my name really is just Ash, right?”

She laughed and pecked his cheek then his neck, pausing to say, “I feel like I’m going to need to see your birth certificate.”

Her fingers delved under his shirt at his lower back. He hissed at her freezing touch, reached behind to take her hands in his, covering them, keeping her wrapped around him.

“You’re always warm,” she murmured, burying her nose into his chest.

They stood like this for a moment, the wind licking her hair up and making her burrow even closer. It wasn’t nearly as cold as a few days ago, lower fifties and almost pleasant in the sun, but the wind still bit. With shuffling, rocking steps, he walked her back toward the barn to block it. “I’m named after a tree. We all are.”

She looked thoughtful. “Maggie…Magnolia?”

He nodded.

“And…Juniper?”

“Yeah, but don’t ever call her that. She hates it. Leanne is short for Oleander, and then Laurel.”

“Why trees?”

He crowded her against the wood siding of the barn. “My parents got married on Arbor Day.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Yeah, until you’re a scrawny kindergartner on a school bus with the name Ash.”

“Oh.” She winced. “Poor boy.”

He chuckled. “Why am I telling you my childhood embarrassments? Not very manly.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Oh, yeah? My getting picked on is a turn-on? That doesn’t surprise me, actually.”

She nodded, dead serious. “It’s only fair after everything I’ve told you. There’s even a theory in psychology about this—social penetration theory.”

He tugged her belt loop. “I’m listening.”

“The theory is that people grow closer through an intensifying series of self-disclosures, beginning with superficial things like favorite bands or TV shows and moving toward more personalstuff.” She gulped as his lips brushed lightly down the side of her neck. “Like childhood traumas. But it requires reciprocity, or else one person winds up more vulnerable.”

“Reciprocity, huh? Like, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?”

“Basically.”

“Who knew psychology was so hot?”

She tugged him closer. He caught himself on the wall above her shoulder, but not before stumbling into her, chest to chest, his knee wedging between hers. He tried to push off her, but with a bright laugh, she wrapped her arms tighter around him and kissed him again. He was already hard and fought the desire to rock against the soft lower curve of her stomach, but just barely. Breathing was no longer a vital concern. He could survive on gasps of secondhand air between kisses. Her foot hooked around his calf, agreeing, warning,Don’t you dare pull back.The almost painful dig of her nails at his back made him twist and give in, give her what they both wanted. When he grinded against her, she rolled her hips into his.

Ash wanted to touch every inch of her, but so much of her body was covered up, and at every point his hands settled—her neck, her collarbone, the stolen spot of warmth at her hip beneath her sweater—he had to resist squeezing too tightly. But when his fingertips grazed up over her stomach, her ribs, and finally met the satin band of her bra, the control he’d managed so far nearly broke.

He groaned, pulling his mouth from hers only to smother his face into her shoulder. He bit playfully at the material there, chuckling at how crazy he felt, how badly he wanted to sink his teeth intoher. “Hazel…”

He didn’t even know what he was trying to tell her. He wanted to savor and devour at the same time. Through hisintoxication with her, the sensory overload, her smell—so fucking sweet and minty and something he couldn’t name—he felt a vague imperative to not push any harder than she did. Whatever line she set, he would not cross. But damn, he would walk right up to it.

Her fingers slipped through his hair and gently scratched his scalp before tugging at the roots.

“Tell me if you—”

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