The porch light pools on Cord’s dirty-blond hair as he blinks and shakes his head carelessly, like having a gun is the same as having an umbrella in case it rains.

He shrugs, too eager to toss aside the discussion and wrap his arms back around me.

“In case we come across those thieves.”

I push against him, stepping out of his embrace.

“You think you need a gun to protect yourself? What kind of thieves are these guys?” I whisper, voice strained and high pitched. “Do you think they’re dangerous?”

“Who knows?” he grumbles with another shrug, slowly crossing his arms over his sturdy chest. I can tell he’s getting irritated with my persistence. “But it’s standard to carry a gun on a cattle ranch. There are coyotes, wolves . . . sometimes thieves who are armed themselves. And it’s better safe than sorry, right?”

“Safe?” I cry. “How is this safe? Now I have to worry about you getting into a gun fight?”

“Sloane, it won’t come to that. Probably. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just want to make sure—”

“Cord, I already worry so much about you. I worry that you’ll fall into one of the irrigation trenches when you’re alone. I worry you’ll get thrown off a horse. I worry that you’ll lose control of the herding cattle. Cord, I just lo—” With a gasp, I catch my tongue between my front teeth.

Did I really almost say what I’m not supposed to?

I nearly let loose the feelings that have been building since our first kiss.

My body is stiff, my hands clenching at my sides. I can tell both of our hearts are thundering in panicked time. Does he know what I almost said? I’m afraid to look at him and see fear or disgust or anything else on his face.

“You just what, Sloane?” he asks quietly, though I can hardly hear him.

I contemplate pretending I didn’t hear him at all, but then my eyes jerk to meet his. I can’t read what he’s thinking, even though the house’s light is right on him. His face is too flat.

Finally, I just give a shake of my head. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

He doesn’t react, his hands slowly sliding into his pockets and then out again, like he’s not sure what to do with them.

I hate myself for my near mistake. Those frightening, three little words are burning inside of me. I don’t need to be experienced in relationships to know you’re not supposed to say “I love you” to someone you’ve known not even two weeks

“Sloane,” he whispers abruptly, stepping forward, his voice gravely and deep.

Cord reaches for me, and I melt instinctively into him, my watery eyes shifting from his gaze to the curve of his delicious mouth.

Without a word, he grabs me by the hips and lifts me up off the ground like I weigh nothing. My legs tangle around his hips. My arms twine around his neck. My mouth crushes against his as I try to tell him how I feel without telling him.

He seems all too eager to use no words. He kisses me deeper, fingers digging into my rear end.

While the others gather around the dining room table and laugh and chat and eat, Cord carries me into the barn and up the hayloft where we are alone, and everything smells of earth and hay, and the stars peer in through the slats of the roof.

We still don’t speak except for guttural, hungry, desperate grunts and moans of pleasure as we shed our clothes and abandon them in a pile. He lays me down, gripping at my thighs and roughly pressing them apart.

A cry so raw that it startles me escapes my throat as his warm breath creeps down my inner thighs, and I feel his entire body shudder in response.

Cord buries his lips between my legs, breathing me in as I writhe and grind against his stubbled face. My fingers pull and knot in his hair. Only when my entire body is convulsing under the heavy strokes of his tongue does he finally crawl up my torso, his mouth still leading the way, tasting every inch of me.

Pausing at my breast, he suckles artfully at the tightened nipple as my legs wrap back around his waist.

“Cord,” I moan, back arching to close any minuscule distance between us. “I need you right now, Cord. I need you more than anything.”

I don’t know where the words are coming from. A month ago, I was afraid to look a guy too long in the eye. Tonight, though, everything is different. I’m a new person, someone who came to life under Cord’s gaze.

Luckily, Cord isn’t the kind of guy who refuses a lady’s request.

With a smirk, he wraps a strong arm around my waist, pressing me up against him as his other arm hooks under my leg and arches my back further. I moan as the head of his swollen cock presses just slightly against my opening. My head rolls back into the hay, and sharp stalks of it cut into my back and legs, contrasting Cord’s soft touches.

He leans down, capturing my mouth as our tongues slide against each other.

Then, finally, just when I can take it no longer, he buries himself inside of me with one long and clean stroke. The powerful thrust makes me cry out against his lips, and my wall’s muscles clench down so hard on his girth that I can hardly move. I’m glad our lips are tangled so roughly, because if they weren’t, everyone in the main house would have heard my scream.

We rock together, faster and harder and deeper, our fingers interlacing tight.

Cord pins my hands over my head as we move as one, our tongues and cries of pleasure twisting in a beautiful harmony.

When again I’m thrown headlong into the waves of pure pleasure, Cord pulls out of me and explodes, his head falling against my neck. We lay in a panting heap, our hands still clasped so tight that I’m unsure where I begin and where he ends.

As his breathing finally begins to slow down, Cord lifts his head, eyes locking on my own. Sweat runs down his temples, and his hair stands up in tufts where I pulled on it. He licks his lips, his chest slowly rising and falling.

Something burns on his lips, something that he wants to say . . . but it doesn’t come.

My heart plummets into the base of my stomach. Is he feeling what I am?

There’s no way to know for sure, and I can’t ask. Not now. Not this soon.

So instead I curl against Cord, sliding my hands back into his hair, breathing in his kiss one more time as the words glide back down his throat.