Neither one of us is talking on the drive home. The radio is playing softly in the background, and we’ll be back home in fifteen minutes…fifteen minutes of quiet country roads. I look back over my shoulder and see one of his jackets in the back of the truck, probably forgotten from winter.

On our right, there’s nothing but cornfields. On the left, rolling hills and oak trees.

“Does this land belong to Blue Stone?”

He nods. “It starts back near the edge of town and stretches this way a couple miles.”

Good.

“Pull over up there, where the road cuts into the cornfield.”

“Why?”

“I want to see something.”

“A cornfield?”

Not exactly.

Despite the skepticism in his tone, he listens and pulls off the road. We dip between the rows of corn.

“Keep going.” The road turns to dirt and there’s nothing but stalks as far as the eye can see. We’re at least a mile from the main road, not another soul in sight.

“This is good,” I say, unbuckling my seatbelt and reaching into the back for his jacket.

He puts the truck in park and turns, a question in his eyes, but I don’t give it time to surface. I hop out of the truck and round the back so I can lower the tailgate and climb up. Fortunately, it’s empty and pretty clean—not that it would stop me if it wasn’t.

Jack cuts the engine and steps out, leaving the door open.

He doesn’t realize we’ll be staying a while.

“Might want to close your door or that overhead light will kill your battery.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you have planned?”

I shake out his jacket and drop it on the bed of the truck. I set my phone down and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” plays softly from the speakers.

“Oh my god,” he says, shaking his head.

“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” I ask, stepping to the edge of the truck bed and leaning down to prop my hands on the ledge. I smirk and he steps right up so I can kiss him. His hand wraps around my neck and his fingers twine through my hair, keeping me bent there while he deepens the kiss.

His fingers massage my neck. His tongue skims against mine and my arms start shaking from the weight of holding myself up. I smile and break the kiss, pressing the back of my hand to my lips.

His eyes are alight with mischief, but he’s still there on the ground. Maybe I’ll need to do a bit more convincing.

I move to the first button on my sundress. There are five up top. Each one will reveal a little more of my pale cream bra—the same bra I wore the day we jumped off the rope swing.

“Y’know, I’m legally a single woman as of today.”

His brow arches, but his eyes are on my fingers as I slowly tug each button free.

“That means your excuses have all run out.”

He shakes his head and waves for me to get down. “Let me take you back to the farmhouse, to a bed.”

“This is a bed—well, a truck bed. Are you worried someone’ll see us?”

My taunt brings a little smirk to his lips. He wipes it away and glances down the road, contemplating something. I want to know what he’s thinking. I want to know how much more convincing it’ll take before he climbs up here.

All five buttons are free and I push the strap of my dress down my shoulder.

He’s watching me, mesmerized.

“Meredith,” he warns.

“Jack.”

His brown eyes implore me to get down, but I shake my head and offer up a sweet smile.

I’ve never stripped like this for a man, but it’s exhilarating. I know he wants me as much as I want him. I know he’s scared to hurt me, but I’m not as fragile as he thinks. In fact, I think I’ve proven pretty resilient these last couple months.

I push the second strap of my dress down, and—oops—the fabric falls to my waist. His eyes skim down, blazing a path across my bare skin. The humor is wiped clean. Now he’s looking at me like a man who’s a little bit angel and a whole lotta devil.

A summer breeze picks up strands of my hair and wraps me in a gentle warmth. Goose bumps bloom across my skin, and all the while, he stands there, watching me.

I tug the rest of my dress down and kick my shoes off with it. I’m standing there in my underwear, exposed and vulnerable. He could still force me to get down. He could drag me to the farmhouse and tuck me into bed, but I don’t think he wants to wait any longer either. I think he’s sick of being the responsible one.

With a groan and a tug of his hand through his hair, he turns and whips the truck door closed. The light cuts off and we’re left under the stars. I blink, trying to force my eyes to adjust faster, but the loss of that sense heightens all the rest. I’m jumpy and nervous as he rounds the truck and hops on up.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he warns with a husky tone before his hands find my waist and he pulls me to face him.

My bare leg brushes against his denim-clad thigh and he squeezes, holding me tight. His chest crushes mine and I feel so small, so out of my league all of a sudden.

His head dips down and his breath hits my hair. I shiver even before he presses a kiss just below my ear.

“Have you ever had sex in the bed of a truck?” I ask, breathless.

He laughs. “I like to treat women a little better than that.”

“Oh yeah?”

He nuzzles against my ear. “I don’t think you realize how uncomfortable it’s going to be for you.”

I smirk and kiss his cheek. “Not if I’m on top.”

And I will be. Tonight, my fantasy is coming true.

We kiss like that, standing in the bed of his truck until I’m panting and writhing and acting like I’m going to spontaneously combust if he doesn’t fulfill my every want and need ASAP. My hands have done the heavy lifting, unbuttoning his jeans and yanking them off as fast as possible. His shirt is gone too, hanging limply on one of the cornstalks after I tossed it out of the truck bed impatiently.

He tugs me down to sit on his lap as his back rests against the cab of the truck. I straddle him and smile.

This is exactly what I wanted.

My bra is gone as quick as his shirt and then there’s the most blissful few seconds of skin on skin, soft breasts against hard muscle. We both sigh against each other and he winds his fingers in my hair, tilting my chin until my mouth is perfectly positioned for him. I want to keep kissing him until my lips stop working, until they’re so chapped that I can’t even talk, but I want something else even more. I roll my hips against him like the beginning of a lap dance.

There’s a deep groan from the base of his throat and it’s like I just sparked a match. I like that sound. I want to coax that sound out of him again and again.

It’s just us in this field with nothing but time. I kiss my way down his chest and then stand.

He stares up at me, and his expression does all the talking, replacing all the hatred Andrew filled my head with. His expression is love, and need, and adoration. His eyes are smoldering as I gently push my underwear down and step out of them.

The moon is nearly full and bright enough that I’m pretty sure he can see every inch of me.

I smirk and point down. “Your turn.”

He laughs. “Oh yeah? So I have to put my ass cheeks on cold metal? Interesting how that worked out.”

“Oh!” I snap. “That’s why I brought the jacket!”

I’d almost forgotten about it.

He stands and I situate the fabric. He tugs off his boxer briefs and my mouth waters. I fist my hands by my sides and do a nice, slow once-over of him. It’s a lot to take in, like a whole lot. He chuckles under his breath and reaches for my hand, tugging me down onto him again. This time, though, he spins me around so my back hits his chest. It’s a new angle, and now we’re both facing out to where the starry sky meets the horizon.

“Lie back against me,” he says, easing me toward him until my head rests against his shoulder. He cradles me there with one hand around my waist and the other tugging my thighs apart. My knees splay out like butterfly wings and then he traces soft circles up the inside of my thigh.

Suddenly I feel exposed. Suddenly I feel like we’re out in the middle of nowhere and anyone could wander up at any second.

“Are you sure we’re alone?”

He chuckles. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

Oh god, what have I done?

He kisses my cheek. “Relax.”

The second half of that word coincides with his finger sliding inside me. My back arches and can we get this man a slow clap because he really knows what he’s doing. He adds a second finger while his thumb skims little circles across my most sensitive area, the spot where all my hopes and dreams live. I wrap my hands around his neck and hold on for dear life. His other hand (the one not currently BLOWING MY MIND) wraps around my chest and palms my breast. Details hit me from every sense: warm, floral summer air, callused hands, hard muscle, smooth wetness. Any residual shyness has flown out the window. I’m splayed out on top of him like I’m on a pool float, basking in the summer sun, but this is better. I’m basking in Jack and I tell him that. He laughs and his chest rumbles and then his fingers start sliding faster.

I was ready for him as soon as we turned off the main road. I was even more ready for him after we started kissing in our underwear. Now—now, I’m a puddle, barely sentient. I’ll come any second if he keeps moving his fingers, pumping them into me like that. My hands turn into tiny hooks as he drags his fingers out slowly and brushes soft circles. It’s like he’s giving me a preview of what’s to come. My toes are already curling. I can feel the warning signs—those first delicious sparks—and then I realize I’m speaking. I’m begging him to stop. I know what it feels like to have him bring me to the brink of oblivion like this. It’s so good—applause-worthy—but I will not be distracted from my end goal. I AM GOING TO HAVE SEX WITH THIS HOT COWBOY IN THE BED OF A PICKUP TRUCK LIKE IT’S MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT.

I tell him this, too, and now we’re both laughing, but I’m not distracting him enough, because he’s teasing my breast in a way that’s making it hard to form complete sentences. I know what he’s doing. He likes this position where he’s in charge and I’m nothing but a gasping mess of want. He promises me he’ll make me come again, but NO. I am done waiting. I push his hand away and spin around, reaching for his crumpled jeans.

“Please tell me you keep a condom in your wallet.”

If not, I’ll fashion one out of something—a corn husk, perhaps woven grass.

My aim is to get his wallet from his back pocket, but I’m so impatient, I just end up pawing at his jeans like an animal who lacks opposable thumbs. We’re laughing as he yanks them away from me and extracts the condom, tears it open, and rolls it on with such precision, such grace. He could go to the Olympics for condom application. It’s obvious he’s done this before, and I know I’m in for a treat. I’d rub my hands together like a little evil mastermind but they’re currently occupied with his very tempting pectoral muscles.

I sit down on his lap and touch every surface I can get my hands on. Yes, I realize I’m so close to having him inside me. I can feel him beneath me, stiff and demanding, but now maybe I’m not in the same hurry I was a second ago. I have him right where I want him. All that hard, tan muscle is just sitting there waiting for me to touch it. That chest is just the tip of the iceberg. His shoulders are something else. I take hold of them and try to shake him. He doesn’t budge. I move my hands down to his biceps and squeeze, trying to see if I can close my fist. I make it halfway around.

“It feels like you’re trying to size up what part of me you want to eat first,” he says with a lazy smile.

I smile wickedly, and then I bend down and sink my teeth into his shoulder, not hard, but he still reaches around and grips my ass. I yelp and release him. It’s tit for tat.

I go back to my exploration. I’m charting unmapped territory, staking claims with tiny Meredith Avery flags. It’s important to be thorough. I don’t let a single inch escape my notice, not his tight abs or the hair that trails down, down, down. He’s tan everywhere, warm everywhere, hard everywhere.

“Not in such a hurry now?” he teases, right before he skims his hands up from my ass and grips my hips. He uses his hold on me to drag me back and forth across his length, and I think one of my eyes starts to twitch. He’s taunting me. He’s wearing a devilish smirk I try to wipe away with a kiss, but that was a mistake, because now he’s still dragging me back and forth and he’s kissing me senseless. He slides his tongue into my mouth and this isn’t even foreplay anymore, this is the best sex I’ve ever had and we aren’t even doing it yet. A ripple shoots up my spine, and I pat his shoulder like I’m tapping out of a fight.

“No…no more of that.”

There are heavy, hot breaths in between each of my words.

This is falling apart. I’m falling apart. I was the one to initiate this little bone-a-rama. I was supposed to be the one rocking his world, but there’s no more delaying. We are having sex right now, and if it kills me, then so be it. I lived a good life. Adios.

“I was going to do this sexy thing where I tease you until you’re weeping with want,” I admit.

“Oh yeah?” he taunts. “Go ahead.”

I spin a little circle on his chest. It’s the manliest thing I’ve ever seen, a broad plane with a sprinkling of dark hair.

“Ha ha. Yeah, right. I think I’ve lost feeling in half my body. My heart is only pumping blood to my nether regions.”

“If it helps, I think you’re sexy as hell.”

My brow perks up. “That does help.”

He grinds his very hard, very erect length against me. It’s a sure sign that he’s as turned on as I am. Maybe my plan didn’t backfire as much as I thought it did?

With a burst of courage, I reach down and grip him in my hand. It’s, ahem, bigger than I’m accustomed to, but hey, that’s what they say about things in Texas.

This is happening. He reaches up to grip my hips in his hands, holding some of my weight for me. It makes it easier to push onto one foot and angle myself over him so that together, we can guide me down until he slides into me the first few inches. I hiss, surprised by the tight fit. I ease off a bit, but the second he’s gone, I crave him again.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

It’s sweet, the idea that if I wasn’t okay, we’d stop. He could crack my pelvis and I would demand he keep going.

“Here,” he says, moving my free hand to his shoulder at the same time he lifts some of my weight off him. Now I have a better angle and I can ease down onto him gentler this time, bit by bit so it’s not painful. It’s earth-shatteringly sexy, being filled up while he stares into my eyes, watching for any sign of pain or hesitation. I clench. He groans. I exhale, relax, and he slides deeper.

I’m not all the way on him, but for now, I’m at my limit. I sink down on my knees and wrap my hands around his neck, kissing him and showing him how insanely hot this is, how perfectly right it feels to be here with him.

He brushes my hair behind my shoulder then wraps his palm around my neck. My pulse jumps against his thumb. “How does it feel?”

I don’t answer him. Instead, I lean back and smile. The look I’m going for: moonlit goddess of the fields. The look I’m probably nailing: escaped sex addict, armed and dangerous.

I decide to turn the tables.

“How do you feel?”

He looks at me like I’m simple. “Are you kidding?”

“I can back off—”

With lightning speed, his hands move to my waist and he tugs me off him a little before lifting his hips and filling me again. My reaction is a wonderfully sexy eyes-rolling-into-the-back-of-my-head move.

“Again,” I demand like a spoiled toddler. “Moremoremore.”

He lifts me up then drags me back down. I arch my back and my loose hair brushes the base of my spine. I’m staring up at the sky when his lips brush against one of my breasts. I’d forgotten all about my breasts. I’d forgotten they even exist, how amazingly sensitive they feel as he brushes his tongue across them. Hooookay there. This cowboy just became a cowman.

He keeps moving me up and down, on and off him, doing the heavy lifting so I’m left with nothing to do but enjoy the sparks of pleasure building inside me. My nails bite into his shoulders. I’m probably leaving crescent moon-shaped divots, but I don’t care, because my hips are relaxing and eventually, I slide down all the way onto him and his hip bones meet mine and now this is the point at which my brain can no longer translate simple messages. It exists solely to process his mouth on my breasts and his hand circling between my thighs and his hardness filling me up.

“Jack…Jack.”

I’m trying so hard to delay my orgasm, but it’s like trying to prop up a house of cards in a tornado. We press our foreheads together and our lips barely touch. I can feel myself clench around him and my shoulders sag as a jolt of pleasure runs down my spine. Another shock follows right after, and there’s no more holding off. I’m tipping, tipping, tipping…I want him to know what he’s doing to me, how sufficiently he’s shattering me from the inside out. I tell him, whispering single, choppy words against his lips as my orgasm wrecks me. I want to say more. I want to tell him I love him, but I won’t because that’s cliché and maybe he’ll think I only love him when he’s doing this to me, as if, for the rest of our lives, we’ll have to bone 24/7 to keep the love alive. I’ll have a skinny almond milk latte—yes, YES!—and a blueberry scone—right there, harder! But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I loved him before this moment. I loved him at the wedding, when he was sitting all alone in that pew. I loved him when he slept on the floor of the shack, scared I might not make it through the night. I loved him when he kissed me right in front of Helen earlier, consequences be damned.

I could tell him that, but instead, I show him. My lips are on his throat and our chests are pressed together so tightly, you couldn’t pry us apart if you tried. We’re both damp now, sticky and hot. His fingers work their magic and he makes me come again and the second orgasm hits so quickly, I feel like he’s cheating. He’s memorized where I like to be touched, how I like to be touched. I tell him we’re not playing by the same rules and he laughs huskily. It’s the richest, happiest sound and I want to hear it again, but I want him to come even more.

I lean back and sink onto my knees so I’m kneeling over him. I like this position, this moment where he looks like he’s on the brink of insanity too. I leverage myself so I can move on and off of him. I’m doing the work now and I feel seriously sexy. His head tips back and he watches me with a lazy, arrogant smile. He exhales a shaky breath as I press my hands to his chest and keep going, clenching around him when his hips buck up into me. He’s been patient, a hell of a lot more patient than me.

“I want to watch you unravel,” I tell him. “I want to see what you look like—”

I don’t even get my full sentence out. My words push him over the edge. His hands dig into my waist so hard it’s almost painful and his eyes pinch close. I can feel his orgasm surge through him, powerful and all-consuming. He’s gripping me like I could slip through his fingers at any moment, like he’s scared to let me go. As his shakes start to subside, I kiss his cheek, his chin, his throat. I feel like I just won a competition I didn’t realize we were having. Sure, he made me come twice, but I made him come hard, and that should count for something.

He thinks my logic is flawed.

He tells me we could keep going as his hand skims down between us and OKAY, is he honestly trying to kill me? Because I’m like Céline Dion, except my heart can’t go on. I’m completely wrung dry. My knees are bruised from the bed of the truck.

“I need to hydrate and towel off. I need to sink into one of those giant ice baths athletes use after a hard workout.”

He laughs and starts to uncoil me from my position on his lap. I protest.

“Let’s sleep here.”

“Not a good idea.”

It’s a great idea. I’m already half asleep on his chest right now. His shoulder makes a wonderful, albeit slightly stiff pillow.

I position his arm back around me. “Here, just hold still and don’t move until I start to snore.”

He doesn’t listen and instead plops me onto the bed of his truck then tells me to hold up my arms. My dress is put right back on, sans bra and underwear. With the buttons undone, I feel seriously sleazy. One glance up at him proves that he likes the look a lot.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll maul you again,” I promise.

We somehow make it out of the bed of his truck and back to the farmhouse. We tell each other to be quiet and to stop laughing as we make it up the stairs to his bedroom. We manage a shower together in which he does most of the cleaning and I do most of the slack-jawed, fully satisfied staring.

“Can we have sex in here?” I ask, painting a heart on his chest with my wet finger.

“Tomorrow.”

“Okay, it’s tomorrow.” It is already past midnight.

“As soon as we wake up.”

“What is that?” I ask. “Six hours?”

Too long, in my opinion. What’s the least amount of sleep humans can subsist on?

“I’ll need breakfast first,” he points out. “For energy.”

“Fiiiine.”

He presses a kiss to my cheek and cuts the water. I prove useless as he towels me off and gently pushes me toward his bed. I’m too happy and in love to sleep. Doesn’t he feel it? The excitement in the air?

“Hey,” I say once we’re lying in bed together, face to face.

He smiles and there are adorable little crinkles around his eyes. He looks worn out. I should let him sleep.

“Never mind.”

His gaze drops to my lips, where I’m nibbling away as I consider something.

“What? Tell me,” he insists, dragging his hand beneath the covers to take hold of my hip.

“No. It’s nothing.”

I close my eyes and try to tell myself to go to sleep. One adorable fluffy sheep is counted off before he says my name.

“Zee-zee-zee-zee-zee, sleeping,” I insist.

“Tell me.”

He shakes my body.

“It’s not important.”

His finger hits my eyebrow and he tugs gently so my eyelid opens.

I laugh.

“I was just going to declare my love, but it can wait until morning.”

Then I close my eyes again because I’m too nervous to see what his face looks like right now. If he looks horrified, I will shrivel up and die.

“What a little chicken,” he says, scooting toward me.

I wink one eye open. “Chicken?”

“Yeah. What was that?”

I blink both eyes open now. “What do you mean?”

“‘I was going to declare my love’? That’s like saying ‘I’m sorry you were hurt’ instead of saying ‘I’m sorry.’ It doesn’t count.”

I poke his chest. “Hey! It took a lot of courage to say that much! I don’t hear you declaring your love.”

He chuckles and then plain as day, he says, “I love you.”

Damn. He said it so simply—didn’t even blink.

I’m the one tearing up, eyes misty with swoony emotion.

“Oh, okay. Zee-zee-zee-zee.”

He smiles and leans over to kiss me.

“See? Chicken.”

“I’m not a chicken!” I slap his chest playfully. “Look at what I’ve done in the last few months! I showed up on this ranch all on my own and demanded a job from the most arrogant devil I’ve ever met—that takes courage.”

“But now you can’t tell that same devil you love him?”

I press my face to the crook of his neck and say the words against his skin. He smells delicious, just like the body wash we used to rinse off. Maybe I’ll live here, right in this little, warm pocket between his head and his heart.

His hand brushes down my spine, soothing me as he speaks. “You don’t have to say it. It’s okay. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

It should be easy to thwart his reverse psychology mumbo-jumbo, but it’s not. He thinks I’m not ready to say it?!

“Are you kidding?” I pick my head up and aim blue daggers at him. “I love you! I was going to say it first! You just leapfrogged me!”

“Let’s check the record.” He holds his finger up like he’s consulting imaginary referees. “Yup, I had the first official ‘I love you’.”

I roll over and climb on top of him to smother him to death.

He cups my butt.

“Hold still,” I groan, hands around his throat. “I’m trying to kill you.”

He laughs and it makes my entire body shake.

“Kiss me,” he says.

“Admit you’re wrong, and I’ll let you live.”

“Kiss me,” he says again. This time his brown eyes meet mine and I realize this is futile. He’s going to win every argument we ever have—there’s no competing with those eyes.

“Kiss me and I’ll let you let me live,” he promises.

My lips are within millimeters of his. “I’m the winner,” I whisper.

He smirks. “Don’t you feel like in some ways, we’re both winners?”

He laughs at his silly joke and I groan. He rolls us over, crushing me with his weight. We lock eyes and the laughter slowly dies. A heavy emotion settles over us and the mood shifts. We aren’t teasing anymore. We’re stripping each other bare and getting to the heart of what matters.

“I wasn’t sure I’d even want to love a man after Andrew,” I admit. “I loved him, he knew it, and he used that love against me.”

His brows furrow. “Are you scared of me taking advantage of you like he did?”

I think about that question for a little while then heave a resigned sigh.

“Does it make me seem foolish if I say no? If I just trust you completely?”

“Love is supposed to make us fools.”

“Oh yeah? What does that make you?”

He smiles and tips his head down to kiss me. “The biggest fool of them all.”