Page 78 of Take Me Home

“I don’t want to stop,” she said.

While he nuzzled the neckline of her sweater down with his chin, kissing the swell of skin just above her bra, his hands reverently spanned her rib cage, then cupped her breasts, thumbs finding her nipples through the thin material. He brushed one and peered up to watch her eyes close, her teeth bite into her lower lip. He brushed it again, this time with more pressure, and she shivered.

“Is it too cold?” he whispered, hoarse.

“No.” Her fingers were still frigid where they settled at the nape of his neck, her nose and cheeks pink. A mass of clouds crowded out the weak midday light, casting them in shade.

Ash reluctantly slipped his hands from her sweater.

“Why are you stopping?” she demanded, borderline whiny.

He pecked the tip of her nose, grinning at her immediate scowl. Then, he tugged her to the front of the barn.

Chapter

Seventeen

Hazel’s skin was cold, but inside, she burned.

While Ash opened up the barn, she had to hug herself to keep from wrapping her arms around him. If that made her desperate, so be it. She was. Every sensor in her touch-starved body had fired back online. It had been so long since anyone had put their hands on her, and the brief loss of contact while he went around flipping on lights, closing the door, and plugging in a space heater, tested her self-control.

The inside of the barn didn’t match its rough exterior—fully finished with warm gray walls, and insulated, she guessed, from the complete hush of the wind outside. The wood-plank floor was a bit nicked and scuffed but swept clean around neat rows of boxes. And though the rafters were high, a loft ate into half of it with a circle staircase leading up. Big, rustic wagon-wheel chandeliers lit up the space.

“Are we trespassing?” she asked suddenly.

He shook his head, then moved in close behind her and rubbed warmth into her arms. That wasn’t much of an answer, and this was clearly private property—they’d passed a house on the way in—but she lost her conviction as soon as she felt him at her back. She tried to spin around, but he stilled her. One hand slid across her stomach, the other to her hip then her butt. Henipped at her ear as his hand dragged up to her breast. Just like outside, she thought she might collapse from the relief of that wide, warm palm.

“God, your body,” he murmured. “Don’t know where to touch you first.”

The heater hummed, low and steady, an echo of the thrum of blood in her ears. It was either incredibly efficient, or she was so turned on she could no longer register the chill.

All Hazel could do in this position was receive his hot, open-mouthed kisses on the back of her neck, the electric promise of his fingers tracing her waistband, dipping just inside to skim the top of her underwear. She endured the agonizing bliss of it until, finally, desperate, she turned in his arms.

She was struck by how beautiful he looked right now, watchful and intense, his eyes dark, locked on her. Even his eyebrows did something to her, thick and a little unruly, that sexy scar. Hazel kissed one, pulling a soft laugh from him. She kissed the other, then his cheek, his chin, his throat, the dip where his neck met his shoulder. Her kisses turned to sucking, and she pressed her palms to his chest, his stomach, working them under his layers of shirts to feel his sun-hot skin over ridges of lean muscles. Oh, yes. This. She wanted this body on hers.

“Take this off,” she said, trying to pull apart the halves of his flannel.

He laughed. “They’re buttons, not snaps.”

“They’re annoying.”

He shrugged his jacket off then worked the shirt buttons quickly, and she yanked it down his shoulders. Next came the Henley underneath and then—

“Jesus Christ, this is the clown car of shirts.” She shoved the last undershirt, a threadbare tee, up and off, and there he was,bare and lean, his chest rising and falling. She tore off her own sweater and shirt in one quick movement, not caring where they fell, and melded her body to his.

Then her hands were between them, working at his fly.

Ash groaned and walked her backward until her backside hit a ledge. A workbench, she realized, just as he bent to catch the backs of her thighs and lifted her onto it.

She’d managed to get his zipper down, and now that her face was just above his, she had the perfect vantage point to see his pleasure pass across it when she slipped her hand in and palmed him over his underwear. He swayed involuntarily into her touch and pulled her face down for a kiss that immediately turned rough, his tongue probing into her mouth, teeth catching her lip.

Her mind snagged on the unexpected image of Christmas trees.

Ash pulled away, panting, eyes dark with want. “Are you laughing with your hand down my pants?”

“You told me you weren’t working with aCharlie Brown Christmastree in here.” She couldn’t get it out without a giggle. “You weren’t lying.”

He opened and closed his mouth, at a loss. “If you utter the word ‘stately,’ I’m out of here.”

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