Chapter Ten

Sinclair dropped two short tumblers and a half-empty bottle of whiskey onto her table with little regard for the glassware, but temper was wasted on the scarred pine. It had seen everything, survived everything, and accepted her carelessness with three soft thunks.

Shane looked up at her from his seat on the other side of the table. “You’re serious? It’s not even noon.”

“We were half naked in my driveway three minutes ago, and you’re going to get scandalized over a pre-noon drink?” The lip of the bottle clinked against the rim the glass closest to him as she poured a double. The scent of charred oak and vanilla seared her nose.

“Come on, how bad can it be?”

In answer, she lowered herself into a chair and poured another two fingers of the aged-to-amber liquid into the second glass.

His lips twisted into a jaded smile. “Baby girl, I wrote this scenario before I even boarded the bus to Parris Island. You met someone over the summer. Some smooth-talking French guy swept you off your feet, and you forgot all about the screwup who had nothing going for him besides a shot at the Marines in lieu of a jail cell. You were so far beyond me by the time I was able to reach out, a part of me knew I’d already missed my chance.”

Tempting. Oh, so tempting to go with his version of events. Write it off to his delay, and her fickle youth, and be done with it. No harm, no foul. But that wasn’t what happened. There had been harm. She brought the glass to her lips and tossed back the shot in one long, burning swallow. After a moment, the burn subsided, but the fire lingered in her veins like a distant relative to courage. “I was pregnant.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his face absolutely neutral, and then picked up his glass and took a long swallow. “What?”

“Before you start calculating ten years of child support payments, or judging me for whatever choice I made, you should know I lost the baby.”

“I…” He broke off, looked away, and downed the rest of his drink.

Had she ever seen him speechless before? Not that she recalled. Compelled to fill the silence, she added, “Nobody knows this except my family.”

He looked back at her. Unflinching. “I’m sorry.”

The bone-deep sincerity in his words hit her like a body blow. She pushed back from the table quickly enough to cause a screech of chair legs over floorboards and struggled for a pat reply. “Me, too.”

“How did it happen? I thought you were on the pill?”

I was stupid and reckless? “Darcy Briggs gave me her pills, because she’d broken up with her boyfriend. I didn’t know I was supposed to wait forty-eight hours before I relied on them without backup. I was so anxious to give you the perfect birthday present, I didn’t read the fine print.”

He nodded slowly, as if digesting the information. “So, you think our first time…?”

“First or second. One of the earliest. Between you leaving, and then Savannah and me flying out to meet up with our cousins and backpack through Europe, I didn’t realize. I missed you so much, Shane. Honestly, that gaping hole you left in my life took in all my attention. If not that, then the effort to walk around like a normal person and pretend the hole wasn’t there.”

“I know. I felt the same way. I’m sorry,” he said again, and she shook her head to fend it off.

“By the time I got to Paris, I knew something was wrong. I taxed what little French I knew to buy a pregnancy test. When it read positive, I just…I don’t know. I freaked. I tried to reach you by calling the base, but when the guy asked me to state the precise nature of the emergency, my throat froze. I hung up, boxed up all the careening emotions, and shoved them to the back of my mind. I told myself to sit tight until you called. Because I knew you’d call. You’d promised me you’d call as soon as you could.”

“Sinclair—”

“But you didn’t call.” She was pacing like a boxer in a ring, but she couldn’t get the story out if she stood still. “And we just kept moving. Frankfurt. Bonn. When we hit Rotterdam, I had really bad cramps, but I sucked it up. We’d figure everything out when we talked. Then we went to Amsterdam, and…”

She stopped stalking back and forth on her side of the table and poured herself another drink. This part took effort. Memories were flooding in faster than she could organize them. Long-buried feelings rode in their wake. Feelings she’d never really experienced until that summer. Fear. Panic. Helplessness. She took a sip and swallowed before continuing, “And in Amsterdam the pain flared into an overwhelming thing that I couldn’t ignore. Savannah found me curled up on the bathroom floor in our hostel, feverish and bleeding. She called for help, and called our parents. I woke up in a hospital about twenty-four hours later, with my parents and a doctor hanging over my bed. I’d had an ectopic pregnancy that continued too long. The doctor spewed a lot of information—a congenital defect resulting in a weird curvature in the tube, so the pregnancy couldn’t progress the way it should. I’m down to one now, but the defect was bilateral, so my chances of conceiving the normal way are, according to the surgeon, remote.” And if she did, her chances of having another ectopic pregnancy were good.

“Fuck it, Sinclair.” He braced his forearms on his knees and stared at the floor. “You should have let me know.”

“Are you kidding me?” She drained her glass and put it on the table with an ill-tempered slam. “I didn’t dare breathe your name. My parents were upset, to say the least.” She dropped into her chair and then poured herself another shot. Thinking about everything that had happened up until this point—talking about it—emotionally drained her, but the next part? Whiskey-induced numbness might help her make it through without bawling.

“My father…” She closed her eyes and time traveled ten years back and a continent away. “My easygoing, fair-minded father was livid. My mom was surprisingly pragmatic about the whole thing. Sort of like, Okay, this happened. We’re going to get you well, get you home, talk about the mistakes you made that led to the situation, and then we’re moving on.” Her mom’s drama-free reaction could still wring a laugh out of her. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, she grounded me for life, but very calmly. She went easy on me.”

“And your dad?”

Shane’s question came from across the table, but it might as well have been from anywhere. The memory pulled her so deeply into yesterday. She sighed, opened her eyes, and blinked her unknowing coconspirator into focus. “My father wanted the name of the guy responsible for knocking up his sixteen-year-old daughter and landing her in a hospital. He wasn’t in the mood to go easy on anyone. Not on me, for violating his trust. Not on the guy who violated his daughter, for damn sure. If I had given him the vaguest clue it was you, your world would have turned to shit so fast your head would have spun.”

She spun her empty glass on the table as an example. Restless hands.

Now he released a breath, looked up, and pinned her with a green gaze full of regret. “So, you didn’t tell him.”

It wasn’t a question. No answer required, but something in those eyes made her speak. She spun the glass again. “I was a fool, not an idiot. I understood the implications of spilling my guts. You would have stood trial for statutory rape and possibly gone to jail. You’d have been booted out of the Marines. Your life would have been ruined.”

He nodded and then got up and walked around the table. When he reached her, he crouched by her chair. A muscle ticked in his jaw, but other than the small sign of tension, she couldn’t pinpoint his reaction.

“You must have been very angry with me by then. I hadn’t called. I couldn’t write. As far as you knew, I was some faithless asshole who’d kept none of my promises, and I was getting off without a single consequence while you paid for all our…”

She got the impression he considered and rejected the word “mistakes.”

“…for everything.” His eyes locked on hers. “I wouldn’t have blamed you for speaking up, baby girl. I deserved everything your father had in mind. Why didn’t you?”

“I told you why,” she shot back, knowing she sounded defensive. “Ultimately everything that happened was my own fault. I brought it on myself by screwing up with the birth control. I compounded the screwup by falling for a guy who was leaving for boot camp as soon as he graduated. You weren’t sticking around. I went into it with my eyes wide open.”

He shook his head, rejecting her explanation. “I’d promised you I’d contact you, and I didn’t. Couldn’t, as it turned out, but you didn’t know that. And still, you didn’t speak up. Why?”

What the hell had her father done to her furnace? Why was it so hot in here? Needing air, and space, she started to push back from the table, but Shane caught the chair legs and held her in place. “Why didn’t you tell him, Sinclair?”

“Shane, so help me God, I’m going to slap you again if you don’t back off.”

“Do it. I’ll take any punishment you dish out, but I’m not backing off until you answer my question. Why. Didn’t. You. Tell. Him.”

Hot words scalded the back of her throat, burned there until she had to let them out. “Because I loved you, you bastard.”

He cupped a hand to the back of her head and drew her down until her forehead rested against his. His warm, whiskey-laced breath flowed over her lips like some rare vintage. “I loved you, too, Sinclair. I loved you like I’d never loved anyone or anything in my whole pathetic life, and I wanted you so badly I never gave much consideration to the risks. Hell no, you didn’t bring it on yourself. I was the adult—”

“Oh, please.” She straightened. “You’re a whopping year-and-a-half older than me, and the whole birthday seduction was my idea.”

“I was eighteen. I had no right accepting that present from you.”

“Did you honestly give our ages a thought at the time?”

“No, but that’s on me, too. I should have. Add it to the shit-ton of things I should have done differently. If I hadn’t been busy righteously fucking up my first attempt at adulthood, I would have been able to call you like I promised. I would have been there for you. It wouldn’t have been your problem, it would have been our problem.” He kissed her softly. “I’m sorry I let you down. I won’t do it again.”

The sincerity in his words shook her. She resorted to cynicism to combat the weakness. “Careful what you take on there, Shane. There’s no need to pull the future into this. We’ve settled the past. Take that victory. It’s a big one, because I’ve been angry with you for a decade. You weren’t around to stick up for yourself, which made you my perfect personal scapegoat. Everything I didn’t want to own, I shoved onto you. Ending up ashamed and afraid in an Amsterdam hospital? Shane’s fault. Having to gain back my parents’ respect? Shane’s fault. Unsure my father would ever look at me the same again? Shane’s fault.”

He reached out a long arm and pulled the chair at the head of the table over. Then he sat, facing her, so they were knee-to-knee. “He loves you.”

Leave it to him to laser in on the deepest wound. “Yes. He does. But I scared him. Disappointed him. Shook his view of me, and of himself. My mom had to spell it out for me, because I couldn’t see past his anger, but she told me…” Damn. A lump lodged behind her vocal cords. She swallowed, but it stuck there. Her voice quavered from the effort of getting around it. “She told me he felt like a failure as a father.”

“Sinclair—”

“No.” She shook her head. “She wasn’t being mean, she was explaining. My father considered protecting his girls one of his most important jobs. He did it in little ways, like putting training wheels on our bikes, or looking under our beds when he tucked us in at night to make sure there were no monsters, but also in big ways. He taught us to react if we felt threatened, and how to throw a punch without breaking our hands. He taught us to drive.”

“You need a refresher course.”

She laughed at his snide comment on her driving skills, despite the emotion clogging her throat. “He thought he’d done a pretty good job with all the protective dad stuff, until his sixteen-year-old daughter landed in a hospital, recovering from a miscarriage. He hadn’t protected me from that. I hadn’t let him.”

“He felt helpless,” Shane said quietly.

“He did. And by refusing to give him a name, I was compounding his helplessness. I wasn’t letting him slay the dragon. It caused a rift. A big one.”

“You bridged it?”

She swallowed hard. “We did. Eventually. I earned his trust again, not just as a daughter, but as a person. Plus, I got older, and less in need of protection. He wasn’t on the hook for my safety and well-being anymore.”

“Yeah. That’s why he comes over to change your furnace filter, and you go to dinner every Sunday.”

“Little gestures,” she conceded, but his observation made her smile. His lips curved, too, lifting a degree higher on one side than the other in a sardonic, and ridiculously sexy, grin.

Then those lips straightened, and his gaze roamed her face before settling on her eyes with a steadfast resolve. “I’m going to earn your trust back, Sinclair.”

…

Thick black lashes curtained Sinclair’s eyes, but her lips tightened briefly in a fleeting frown. “There you go, talking in the future again.” She leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbow on his shoulder as she brought her face closer to his. “We don’t have a good track record for getting the future to play out the way we want. I prefer to concentrate on the here and now. Take this opportunity to work the leftover chemistry out of our systems.”

Then her lips moved over his, warm and persuasive. Distracting, but no so much so he didn’t recognize her effort to hijack the conversation and steer it away from plans… trust…anything that required her to rely on him. He wasn’t going to let her do it. And she didn’t really want him to, or he wouldn’t be sitting here. She wouldn’t have let him into the place she considered her fortress and sanctuary if all she sought was a clear conscience and a closure fuck. No, sir. This was a test. One he needed to pass…his thoughts drifted south as her hand slid purposefully up his inseam…or die trying.

Since passing meant demonstrating there was more between them than leftover chemistry, he caught those wayward fingers before they reached their destination. Being denied surprised her enough to have her abandoning the kiss and leveling an exasperated look at him. Oh, yeah, she wasn’t accustomed to anyone putting on the brakes. He lifted her hand to his mouth, and bit the side of her thumb. “I’m not that easy. You can’t just pour me a drink and grab my dick.”

Her dark brows shot up. “Since when?”

“Since now. My dick. My rules. Show me around first.”

Her brows came down, low enough to carve a little notch of consternation between them. “Another tour? I just downed three shots, Shane. I can’t drive anywhere.”

“Show me around here,” he clarified then stood and pulled her to her feet. On his own, he crossed to the opposite end of the big, open room, where a drafting table and swiveling stool positioned beneath a skylight set off her studio space. Framed sketches of rings, necklaces, and other adornments decorated the walls, and he found himself appreciating the contrast of sparkling sophistication against the unpretentious backdrop of knotted boards. The contradiction offered a perfect reflection of the woman herself. Because she remained by the table, looking at him like he was full of shit, he added, “Come on. Let’s see this woodpile you’re so attached to.”

She stared at him a second longer, trying to figure his game. Finally, she shrugged and crossed to him. “As I mentioned before, it’s a work in progress.”

And it was, but by the time she’d shown him around the main level, with its high ceilings and open layout, he could see the work she’d already done and visualize the end product. Her running commentary about walls becoming windows, original hand-hewn ceiling beams, and reclaimed floors helped. Admittedly, he wasn’t a hearth-and-home kind of guy—he didn’t, technically, have either—but by the time she finished showing him around the main floor, he could understand what she saw in hers. Standing for over a century and a half gave scarred boards and worn stone an honest integrity a newer build simply couldn’t capture, but those walls also whispered with potential.

“When I get my permits,” she said and gestured toward an old-fashioned spiral staircase fanning up to what had once been the hayloft, “I’ll expand the upper level.”

Yeah, “when,” not “if.” Clearly, she refused to contemplate any other outcome.

“Right now, there’s only my bedroom, and a small bathroom. Anyway”—she faced him and did a little flourish with her hands—“that’s it. The grand tour.”

“You’re not going to show me your bedroom?”

Her expression turned guarded, which gave him his answer before she responded. She really wasn’t planning to let him see the inner sanctum—where she slept, and dreamed. Predictable, considering she didn’t trust him, but even so, disappointment put a dull ache in his chest.

“No man who calls my home a woodpile gets to see my bedroom.”

“That’s awfully strict.” He stepped closer.

Her chin lifted. “My bedroom, my rules.”

He moved closer, backing her up until the heels of her boots hit the first stair. Then he lowered his mouth to her ear. “Has any man seen your bedroom?”

“That’s none of your business.”

So, no. His pulse kicked up. “What’s the matter? You got something up there you don’t want me to see? Were you maybe thinking of me this morning, and left your bed a wreck and a personal item on your nightstand?”

“Get over yourself,” she tossed back, but she said it on a laugh, so he pressed forward, forcing her up a stair.

“Show me your bedroom.”

“I’m not that easy.”

For the first time in…ever, challenging her wasn’t going to work. Fine. He could switch tactics. He kissed the corner of her mouth. “What if I apologized for the woodpile comment?”

Her eyelids drifted down, and her fingers curled into his belt loop. “I’d accept your apology, but my bedroom’s still not on the tour.”

He kissed the opposite corner and then raised his head. “What if I said I was wrong the other night, when I suggested you should take a buyout?”

Her eyelids flew open, and she stared up at him. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. You were right. You can’t go a mile down the road and find the exact same thing you have here. A buyout won’t work. This is too unique.”

She tipped her head to the side, and her lips twisted into a half smile. “Nice to hear, but ultimately irrelevant. You don’t make the decisions. You point out the risks and offer solutions.” The smile disappeared, and she set her jaw. “It’s on me to convince the city planning commission to grant my permit, and deny theirs.”

She’d summed up the situation perfectly. This was her problem to handle, but the look on her face reminded him too much of a girl outside a gym, about to take on a guy twice her size who didn’t give a damn what she wanted. The impulsive part of him he no longer let handle executive functions wrested control of his prefrontal cortex. His hand curved around the nape of her neck and brought her face close to his. His mouth was running before he could shut it down. “I’ll figure a way to work it out.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“It’s my job to find solutions, and I’m going to find one for you.” Fuck if he knew how, but now that the words were out, he realized he meant them.

“But…I thought you favored the simplest option?”

“I said the simplest option usually wins the day. Governments especially tend to like the most economic solutions, but simple economics don’t make something right. You bought the barn as a home, not an investment, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your home because it’s suddenly inconvenient for others. I’ll come up with a solution. I promise.”

“How…?”

“Just trust me,” he repeated. Her lips parted on another question—one he probably couldn’t answer—so he ended the conversation by commandeering her upper lip with his teeth. At her sigh of surrender, he dragged her up and into his arms, palming her ass through her jeans as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her upstairs, but stopped on the landing outside the half-open door.

“Show me your bedroom, Sinclair.” His voice held a note he didn’t recognize. Desperation. He needed some gesture from her. Some privilege. Even a small one.

Teeth scoured the line of his jaw, and then her cool voice filled his ear.

“Only if you let me grab your dick.”

A man who didn’t know her as well might interpret the retort as a sexy joke, but he knew her well. It was her way of establishing limits. Specifically, limiting the things bonding them together to sex. She was trying to set the terms.

Sorry, baby girl. No deal.

Yes, he was already kissing her. Already pushing through the door of her whitewashed bedroom. And yes, his hands were already under her shirt, bracketing her ribs and closing in on the lush weight of her breasts, but that wasn’t any kind of surrender on his part. His plan involved making her need him—on more than just a temporary, physical level—but a resourceful man used any means at his disposal. Satisfying her physical needs was a means, and he intended to satisfy her until she couldn’t think straight. He simply had to do it while enforcing one hard stop. He’d never been inside her without anything less than her absolute and total trust, and he refused to start now.

Details filtered in as he crossed the room—filmy white curtains covering dormer windows, the cushion of a rug beneath his feet, and…he stopped dead in his tracks. “Holy shit.”

She actually blushed a little. “What? Just because I live in a barn, I can’t appreciate a little luxury where I sleep?”

Centered under a soaring, multi-paned skylight sat a big, upholstered sleigh bed. It dominated the space, dove-gray velvet head and footboards gracefully rolled outward, practically inviting him to put them to use.

Impractical and romantic, just like the woman who spent her nights cradled in it. She owned up to her impractical side easily enough, but she tended to keep the romantic side under wraps. Or did she? Unjustifiably proprietary instincts had him asking questions he had no right to ask, and might not be prepared to hear the answers to.

“No other man has been in this room with you? In that bed with you?”

“You’re the first,” she admitted, breathing into his ear. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Oh, it went to his head, and a few other places. He rubbed his lips against hers and sat himself down on the edge of the bed so she straddled his lap. She deepened the kiss. Need and trust—the move felt a little like both. He’d take it. He gripped her hips and shifted her more tightly onto his lap. “I appreciate your honesty, Sinclair. Let’s aim for some more. What we have here isn’t leftover chemistry. Every single thing that’s happened between us since I got back is new. You’re not a sixteen-year-old with a wild streak and no sense of her own power. I’m not an impulsive fuckup skating through life by the seat of my pants.”

He kissed her hard, to seal those words in her mind, before continuing. “I’m not that guy anymore. I’m going to prove it to you.”

Slender arms wrapped around his neck. She tilted her head and angled her lips toward his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except this moment right now. No past. No future. Just this.” It seemed she had her own points to prove, because she punctuated the assertion with a slow, sliding kiss.

He’d spent most of his adult life subscribed to the same theory, but it had never held true when it came to her, and it still didn’t. Ten years had changed a lot for him, but not that. She mattered. What she thought of him mattered. There’d been a time when she’d thought enough of him to risk more than her body, and invest more than the moment directly in front of her. He’d had her trust, shared her dreams, and she’d shared his. Having her in his arms now without the rest of it felt like holding only half of her. He wanted all. He didn’t have a fucking clue how he was going to get it, but he’d spent the last decade becoming a master at devising plans—complex, airtight plans that could hold up to any contingency—so he would damn well come up with a plan for her. For them.

And while he might not know every step he needed to take yet, he knew the first one. Give her what she wanted, right here and now. He understood the underlying reason for her need, even if she didn’t, and it had nothing to do with leftover chemistry. Confession might be good for the soul, but it was hell on the emotions, and wading through years of hurt and disappointment left her desperate to wash the ugly residue away in a flood of pure, fundamentally cleansing pleasure. She needed relief, and she wanted it from him.

Providing it, while not crossing the boundary he’d drawn for himself, might well kill him, but some missions were worth the risk. He broke the kiss and dragged her poncho over her head. It landed in a heap on the rug, and he pulled in a breath. She sat there in a snug white top suspended by thin straps that looked like they’d snap with one good tug. The nearly sheer cotton did little to hide the swells of her breasts, or the tight, gravity-defying points inspiring his cock to gravity-defying feats of its own. Between the night at the Lookout and their driveway adventures, his mouth and hands had appreciated the enhancements Mother Nature had bestowed to her body, but now his throat dried in anticipation of finally being able to look his fill.

“Off.” He growled, afraid he’d rip the thing away if he touched it. “I want to see you.”

She swept it over her head in one graceful pull, arching her back in the process. He stopped her right there, with her arms crossed over her head. Her shirt dangled around her wrists. Her elbows pointed to the sky, her tits lifted toward him like a gift.

Same pale, silky skin and pretty pink tips, but they were fuller now. More opulent. “Don’t move.” He blew the instruction across one straining peak, a shade deeper than he remembered, and watched it draw tighter. Her thighs clenched his hips, and a tormented little moan drifted to his ear. The entire continuum of heaven and hell in one small sound.

“I want to see you, too,” she said, managing to infuse a good dose of imperious southern demand into her unsteady voice. Then she took it upon herself to pull her arm free from the white top and run her hand down his chest, under his sweater, along his abs.

Heat burned through him from every point of contact and shot directly to his pounding cock. Okay, her touching him was a luxury he couldn’t afford, or he’d be buried deep inside her before his head had time to remind his dick that wasn’t the plan.

“Not yet.” He caught her roving hand, drew both of them behind her back, and gave the stretchy top still dangling from her other hand a tug. Perfect. Strong enough to do the job, but soft enough not to cut into her. A quick series of twists, and he secured her wrists.

“What the…?” She automatically tried to pull an arm free, but the bind held. Her eyes darkened as she realized what he’d done, then flashed at him. “Hey.”

“Trust me.” He kissed her again, to end the debate before it started, and did his level best to issue a promise with every part of his mouth. He kept at it until her shoulders relaxed and her chest heaved.

“Shane—” she started as soon as he raised his head.

“You wanted to see me.” He bent his arm behind his head, took a handful of his sweater, and yanked it off. That, too, momentarily distracted her from the argument. Her gaze bounced all over him—throat, shoulders, chest…lower—and he caught himself tightening every hard-earned muscle to keep her captivated. Eventually her gaze lifted to meet his. He saw a gratifying fever in those midnight-blue depths.

“I want to touch you,” she said bluntly.

“Not this time, baby girl.”

Her chin jutted, and he nearly grinned at the familiar, stubborn gesture. Sinclair hated being told no. Even when it was for her own good.

She also knew how to change tactics on a dime. Like now. She raised one dark brow and lifted the corner of her mouth in a seductive smile. “Used to be you loved having my hands on you. I touched you everywhere.” She leaned forward until her mouth grazed his ear and murmured, “Everywhere…remember?”

Hell, yes, he remembered. Every second of every single moment she’d had her hands on him was etched in his memory. From the way her palm had rested tentatively on his cheek during that first “thank you” kiss—and unlocked some better side of his character just by acknowledging his reckless heroism—to the no-holds-barred explorations her curious fingers had taken those times she’d cradled his cock in her mouth and driven him right out of his motherfucking mind.

“I remember everything. I want all of it, and more, but if I let you put your hands on me right now, I’m not going to be able to do the things I want to do to you.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Exactly what do you want to do to me?”

She might have been aiming to intimidate him with that look, but he wasn’t easily intimidated. The fact that she’d try made him want to haul her up and fuck her senseless, but instead, he ran his hands up her arms and pulled her toward him until her breasts swung forward and their sweet weight landed against his chest. Over her soft moan, he said, “I’m going to have my way with you, Sinclair. And I’m going to whip you into such a frenzy, you won’t give damn how I do it.”

Slowly, he lifted her, dragging her tits over his chest. Her moan got louder, and her eyelids fluttered. He repeated the move, holding her a little closer this time, increasing the friction. Her head fell back. “More.”

“Once more.” He switched his hold to her hips. “One more time, and then I use my mouth.”

Her moan might have been agreement, or protest, but she widened her knees to press her center firmly against him. He pulled his abs taut to give her a good ride and lifted her again, closing his eyes to enjoy the scrape of her hard, hot nipples across his skin and the damp heat seeping through her jeans. This time he just kept going, and once he had her up there, tits level with his face, he closed his mouth around one tight peak. She gasped and jerked back a little, but that’s really all she could do. He had her hips lifted, her hands tied, and she’d twined her legs around the chair to keep her lower body anchored to him. It wasn’t until he drew her deeper, and she sucked in a breath, that it occurred to him she might be sore from the way he’d gone at her earlier.

“Too rough?”

“I like the way it hurts. Don’t stop.”

Not a chance, but it was time to remind her he could be careful, too. There’d been a time when he’d been very, very careful, and she’d liked it very, very much. He gentled his mouth. Her incoherent murmurs were the payoff for every soft kiss, every light flick of his tongue, and every ounce of his restraint.

When her fidgeting turned restless, and her breaths edgy, he reinforced his grip on her ass and stood. The move surprised a small cry out of her—and forced her into another trust-building exercise, given she was essentially a passenger in his arms. He strode to the end of the bed and set her down on the tufted velvet. A little nudge tipped her back and forced her to brace herself on her hands. He skimmed his palms down worn denim and tugged one boot off, then the other.

“Hurry,” she said, and scooted toward him. “I want you. Now.”

She couldn’t possibly know what a picture she made, sitting there bared and bound on her princess bed, issuing orders like she had all the power in the current dynamic. In truth, she did, because this was him proving himself to her, but part of the proof involved getting her to have faith in him to give her what she needed, rather than what she asked for. He pulled her off the perch, nearly groaning at the way her breasts bounced from the impact of her feet hitting the floor, and then stepped close. “Patience, baby girl.”

Her chin came up a notch. “I’ve never been known for my patience.”

No, she hadn’t. At eighteen he’d had the reputation for being impulsive, but she’d been the one to set the breakneck pace of their relationship. He’d been too young, and frankly, too far gone, to even think of slowing things down. But he wasn’t an undisciplined teenager anymore. He hooked his fingers into the front of her jeans, and undid the button.

“It’s time you learned some.” Then, very slowly, he drew the zipper down. Even more slowly, he eased his hands into the now-gaping waist and pushed the denim over her hips. The jeans settled around her calves. He took a deliberate step back and paused to drink in the sight of her in tiny white panties. “I don’t appreciate being rushed.” To underscore the statement, he ran a fingertip along the edge of the silk, taking a lazy path from her hip to where the whisper-thin fabric disappeared between her thighs.

“I don’t appreciate being tortured.”

The ragged accusation made him smile. Same old Sinclair. “Torture? I haven’t even looked at you yet.”

Five full seconds of silence met that statement, followed by, “Okay, you’ve looked. Now undo my hands, and—”

He spun her around.

“Hey!”

“I’m not done looking.” He swept her hair over her shoulder and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “Not nearly done.”

She twisted her hands, testing the makeshift restraint holding them together behind her back. “Shane…”

He laid a hand over her tethered wrists and placed another kiss between her shoulder blades. “Shhh. I’m busy looking.” Then he spanned a hand along the base of her neck, and, keeping hold of her wrists, bent her over the bed. A line of white silk pulled tight between her ass cheeks.

“Shane.”

“Busy,” he reminded her and kissed the small of her back, the V of her thong, and then he dropped to his knees and followed the path of the panties with his tongue.

“Oh…God. That’s not looking. You don’t look with your tongue.”

“The Marines trained me to use all my senses to get a complete picture. Sight”—he hooked his fingers into the fabric stretched across the top of her ass and peeled the panties down—“touch”—he slid his palms along the smooth curves, parting them to get a better view of all his targets. Her fingers opened and closed above his head.

“Don’t even…” She tried to squirm away but he held fast.

“Taste,” he finished over her protest and swept his tongue from the last notch of her spine to the hot, slick flesh he’d exploited when he’d had her splayed out in the front seat of his car. She jumped and wiggled, but ultimately submitted with a defenseless sound. He drew back, slid a hand down her leg, and guided her knee up until he had it braced on the footboard. The position spread her thighs wide. The sight of her, open and ready for him, sent powerful mandates from primitive parts of his brain. He sat back on his heels, closed his eyes, and gave himself a crucial moment to fortify his resolve.

Sinclair, apparently, didn’t have a moment in her. “Enough. You’ve looked your fill.”

He pulled air into his lungs, let it out slowly, and waited for the pounding in his cock to subside from agonizing to merely brutal. When he was sure he had himself under control, he opened his eyes. “You’re right. Enough looking. Now I reintroduce my mouth to you properly.”

Her forehead hit the bed with a soft thump. “Shane…”

Not a “no,” so he ignored his name on her lips, angled his head, and got to work. The room filled with the sound of him making good on his promise. Her breathing turned heavy, each exhale accompanied by increasingly frustrated moans. She couldn’t hold still, but he didn’t try too hard to stop the jerky motions of her hips since most of her effort went into pushing herself into the path of his tongue.

Finally, those moans pitched up into a sharp curse. She tightened her hips and struggled to pull herself upright, but he put a stop to that by nudging her just enough to overbalance her.

The comforter muffled her next curse, and then she managed to turn her head and hit him with a look of pure, sweet desperation. “For the love of God, Shane. I can’t take any more. I need you inside me. Now.”

“I want to be inside you. Make no mistake. I’m suffering like the damned right now. My balls ache. My cock’s throbbing and furious from neglect. But that’s how it’s going to stay because I don’t earn the privilege of being inside you until I earn your trust.”

An aggrieved moan was her only response. He rested one hand along the top off her ass, just below her tightly clenched fists, and rimmed her swollen threshold. “Don’t worry. I won’t allow you to suffer while I’m proving myself. I’ll make sure you come. Long, hard, and as many times as you can handle. Do you trust me to do that for you, baby girl?”

Then he plunged two fingers into her damp, hot channel, and her body answered for her. She arched off the mattress as the first spasm gripped her, and her uncensored scream of gratitude battered the old barn walls.

Maybe it wasn’t an unqualified declaration of trust, but it was definitely a start.