“This is pretty comfy,” she said, settling back into the blankets. “Maybe sleeping in barns is underrated.”
I laughed. “I’m not sure about that. I don’t make a habit of it—only in emergencies.”
She shrugged. “You and Austin have both said that you’re willing to sleep in the barn to ensure that your animals are all right. I don’t know a lot of people who’d classify that as an emergency. That’s someone who cares.”
I gestured to her. “Listen, I can’t thank you enough for what you did for us tonight.”
She blushed, and I was captivated by the way the color crept up her neck even as she looked away from me.
“It’s my job,” she said.
“It’s your calling,” I corrected.
“Thank you for saying that.”
“It’s true,” I said. “You’re incredible.”
She looked back at me, swallowing audibly. “Back atcha,” she said, the words coming out in a whisper.
The look between us felt as though it was drawing out longer and longer, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I leaned forward just as she lifted her face to mine and kissed her.
17
LUCY
I couldn’t believe that I was the one in my body as Aaron’s big hands made their way over me, moving down from my neck to my shoulders and lingering in my sweetest spots for a moment here and there.
I was never that girl who drew little hearts on her notebooks and wrote “Mrs. Lucy Kent” on them, but that didn’t change the fact that there had always been a part of me to harbor a secret, burning crush on Aaron. It made me laugh to think about how Austin always ragged on me for following him around, trying to undercut him with veterinary facts… when in reality, a huge part of me had just been trying to reassure Aaron that his horses, which were just as sacred to him as his family, were safe with me… and that little petty part of me liked showing Austin up, I had to admit.
Now, as Aaron and I sat on the blankets together, warm in the barn with the storm raging around us, I felt those big hands move down to my sides and settle on my waist, and I sighed into his mouth at the touch. I couldn’t really call it relaxing, not when my heart was speeding along like a racehorse. No; rather, it was an understanding, a settling into something that felt so right it was inevitable.
“God, Lucy,” Aaron murmured against me, running his tongue against the seam of my lips in a request. “You feel amazing.”
I couldn’t help the groan that emerged from my throat at his words, and opened my mouth to his, allowing his tongue more access as he’d requested.
At the parting, his tongue darted in cautiously as if he were testing my willingness, and then, when my only response was to reach my hands up into his hair and pull him closer, he did it again, swirling it around and around my mouth as if he were trying to taste every part of me.
Separated from the rest of the world the way we were by the storm, it was easy to forget about the rest of Rock Ledge, and my responsibilities… and his brothers. It was easy to fall into him headfirst and know that he was big enough to catch all of me.
I rose up on my knees and set my hands on his shoulders, relishing the first time that I’d ever been taller than him as I tilted my head down and seized control of the kiss. Now it was his turn to groan as he wound his hand under my hair to wrap his fingers around my neck and pull me closer.
I gasped a little bit as he reached into my hair and pulled out the band that held the tresses back, letting it fall forward and wrap around us in a thick, pale blonde curtain that seemed to shelter him and bring him even closer to me.
He moved his lips down to my neck, gently moving them to my pulse point where they fixed with an eager concentration as if he wanted to consume me.
“You’re incredible,” he said into my skin, “everything about you. The way you smell, the way you fit into my hands….”
I brought his mouth back to mine with an eagerness that surprised me. No guy I’d ever been with had inspired this kind of hunger in me.
Maybe it was that hunger that made me nip at his lower lip, and he shuddered powerfully against me in response as he laid me down on the blankets with fluid gentleness, moving to cover me with his big frame.
“I need more, Lucy,” he said between kisses as he moved his hand up to bury into my hair, pulling me even harder against him. “I need more of you.”