Austin got to the annex earlier than he’d expected. Though he hadn’t worked today, he’d spent several hours in Bozeman finding gifts for his family and picking up some of the locomotive parts that had been cleaned and restored by a local train mechanic.
Okay, and he’d been searching for Lacey. After she’d disappeared around that corner, he’d forced himself to walk away. But she’d said she was going to find a gift for her brother, so he’d kept an eye out for her in every shop he’d entered.
No luck in Bozeman, but his luck looked ready to change when he pulled up to the annex, as lights twinkled in the windows and Christmas tunes boomed from inside.
He gave himself two minutes to sit in the cab of his truck and stare at the festive building. She’d come, even though he’d turned her down earlier. He didn’t know if he would have that kind of pride, that strength of resolve. Hell, he didn’t even know if he could face her now.
He got out of the truck, crossed to the annex, stomped the snow and mud off his feet, and opened the door. Music hit him in a tidal wave of sound. Irish voices belted out “Fairy Tale of New York,” a grimy, guttural song of bitter disappointment. Lacey worked in time with the music, installing what appeared to be the new boiler tubes that had arrived yesterday. Despite the bite of the air outside, she was sweating from hard work, so much that she’d stripped her shirt off and wore nothing but a tight, grease-stained white tank top and her jeans and work boots. Some of her hair had fallen free of her messy ponytail and stuck to her neck and shoulders. She moved with strong, determined motions as she conquered the locomotive’s boiler system on her own.
She was a phenom. A fallen Christmas angel trying to make good. A woman fighting for a second chance.
She was so fucking hot. And he was an idiot for listening to his good sense earlier.
He stepped into the annex and stripped off his thick jacket, dropping it on the peg by the door. Next came his flannel shirt.
He’d hurt her today. Rejected her. Yet still she’d come here. She’d reached out to him not once, not twice but three times today. First, in a gesture of friendship she’d let him know about the world’s ugliest sweater. Then she’d offered him her body. Now she worked her ass off in an unmistakably up-yours gesture.
It made him want to get up hers.
He made plenty of noise as he approached. When she noticed him, she didn’t pause in her work. Her gaze flared with anger before flicking down his body, her filthy hands slowing as she noticed him in his white T-shirt and jeans. She vibrated with unspent energy, the same frustrated air that had poured off her earlier when she’d asked if he wanted to take her home.
She wouldn’t ask again. He knew that. What sane person would?
It was his turn to do the asking, and he let his hands do it for him. He grabbed her elbow and pulled her away from the locomotive’s boiler. She didn’t fight, but she didn’t move easily for him either. He tugged her against him, her breasts flattening against his chest and her crotch pressed against his thigh.
Her voice rough, she said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You,” he answered. “If you’ll let me.”
She glared at his chest before slowly, deliberately wiping her greasy hands down his clean, white T-shirt. Mucking him up. Staking her territory.
He grinned. “I want to get dirty with you, too.”
“You said no earlier. Why should I let you change your mind now?”
“Because for some reason you want me. And for some reason I want you. Earlier, I let the wrong part of myself do the talking, and I’ve been kicking my own ass ever since.”
“Can I have that job?”
“Kicking my ass?”
She nodded, a muscle ticking in her jaw. “You have no idea how badly I want to. It’s been a special dream of mine for years.”
“I don’t doubt that.” He let her go and took a step back. “Knock yourself out. Or me, if you can.”
She hesitated. “What?”
Spreading his arms wide, giving her a big target, he said, “Go on. Let’s get it out of our systems.”
She shook her head. “No way. I’m not going back for assaulting—”
“There’s no officer here. No criminal. Just Austin and Lacey and a fuck load of hormones and history that need to be gotten rid of. So come on. No holds barred, either of us.”
She stared at him for a long moment and he waited, every muscle tense with anticipation. Then she planted her hands against his pecs and shoved.
He hardly moved. “Come on, Lace. You’re stronger than that. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”
She shoved again. And again, so hard he had to take a step back to stay on his feet. But when she cocked her arm back to take a swing, he was ready. He grabbed her fist and spun her around so fast she barely had time to gasp before he’d bent her over the workbench. His hand traveled down her chest, dragging the neckline of her tank top over one breast to expose a thick beige bra.
Never in history had beige lingerie been sexier.
Breath panted from her chest. Her head tipped forward, bracing against her forearms on the workbench in submission.
“You want this?” He thought she did, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“I—” She breathed so hard she seemed incapable of speaking.
“Unless I hear a hell yeah, we stop right here.”
She reached back, grabbed his hand and slid it between her thighs, sighing, “Hell yeah.”
The magic words. He flicked open the snap of her jeans and slipped his hand inside her panties. She was wet and slick and almost bare.
He dropped his head against the back of her shoulder. “Oh, fuck.”
Her hips rocked, grinding her ass against his throbbing dick and nudging his fingertips deeper into her folds, making her groan. “More.”
He rubbed, his fingers bracketing her clit, allowing him to massage her with his knuckles. Her body jerked, her moan rending the air. He was so hard he was in danger of finishing before her. He needed some distance, so he worked his free hand down the back of her pants and slid his finger inside her from behind.
She gasped. “Oh, God.”
“You said you wanted to ride me,” he whispered against her slick neck. He worked her harder, reveling in the tightening of her muscles, the incredible way her pussy tugged at his finger, drawing him farther in.
“Almost…there.” She grabbed the hand playing with her clit and forced his rhythm to change, her body immediately responding by contracting around him. Before he could react, she threw her head back, opened her mouth, and came with a throaty cry that nearly took him over the edge.
Lacey collapsed against the workbench, all the energy draining from her muscles with every ebbing wave of her orgasm.
Oh, my God. Austin Wilder just made me scream like a banshee.
The thought should’ve been humiliating. Every aspect of the act should’ve made her feel sick with shame. He’d spun her around, bent her over, and essentially turned a frisk into a finger fuck.
But she’d loved every dirty second of it.
And she wanted more.
Pressing her palms against the rough wood, she forced herself upright and faced him. “Got a condom?”
“Several.”
“Good.” She slipped his belt free of its buckle, the backs of her fingers brushing over an insanely big erection. “I need this…so bad.”
His hands swept up and down her arms, pulling her against his chest. He pushed her hair away from her cheeks, tucking it behind her ears in a gesture that was almost tender. She tried not to read anything into it. Just postcoital hormones making him feel emotions he wouldn’t otherwise feel for her. Except he hadn’t come yet.
That was about to change.
He leaned down and captured her mouth. She opened for him, her tongue greeting his in an open-mouthed caress that made the spontaneous kiss from earlier look placid by comparison. This kiss was slow and languid, deep and intimate. This was the kiss of lovers who’d had a first taste and wanted everything on offer.
With his belt undone, Lacey carefully slipped each button of his jeans out of its hole. Her hand delved inside to discover hot, smooth skin already slick from wanting her. She drew him out, her breath growing raggedy as the sight of his erection made her body pulse all over again.
She glanced up, the desire in his gaze holding her captive as she slowly lowered herself to her knees. That look…that scorching, all-wanting look… She’d never seen anything like it.
She wanted all of it, but she’d learned her lesson. She would only take the parts that wouldn’t end up damaging her.
He sucked in an unsteady breath when she took him into her mouth, his fingers tightening at her temples. God, the taste of him. The earthy cocktail of sweat and pheromones that did more for her than any illicit thrill. She stroked him with the flat of her tongue, teased him with its tip. She took him as deeply as she could until his body shook and panted from the effort to hold on to a shred of control, just as hers had done moments before.
She’d wanted this for so long. Needed it for longer. Yet this was nothing like her desperation-fueled dreams. This was real and messy and loud and harder than anything she could’ve dreamed.
Without warning, he tugged her to her feet, his mouth attacking hers and his body driving her back against the wall. His hands worked between them, and through her fog of need-it-now, she realized he was stroking a condom onto himself. Before she could offer, he’d swept his hands behind her thighs, lifting her up and spreading her wide in one smooth movement.
“Ready?” he growled against her ear.
She nodded, unable to get words past her tightening throat, and he thrust hard, seating himself deep within her. She was trapped between him and the wall, held suspended by his strong hands as he ground against her, burying himself over and over and hitting her just right every single time. She couldn’t move much, other than mini thrusts in time with his. When his sped up, so did hers. Her cries of need echoed his until he’d worked her so hard she unraveled around him, coming again with a startled shout against his neck.
As the pleasure died away and reality returned with each passing breath, she expected the guilt and recriminations to start—not from him but from her own rational mind.
Nothing but silence greeted her. Her brain and body found peace and harmony.
For a few heady moments, he’d helped detonate her frustrations and returned her to the women she’d once been.
Satisfied, yet always eager for more.