“At what exact point do you throw them out?” Natalie’s fascination with his work made it infinitely more fun to tend bar that night.

Aaron refilled Ty Lorner’s beer while keeping an eye on the couple all but humping on the dance floor.

“Ed’ll let ’em stay as long as they’re paying to drink. Eliza usually cheers them on. I tend to tell them to find a room if any skin that should be under clothing is revealed to the bar at large.” The couple was rapidly approaching Aaron’s line.

Natalie was laughing and gazing up at him like he was a fucking superhero.

“What did I do to earn a look like that? Whatever it was I sure as hell want to do it again.”

“I was just thinking about you helping Austin and about how even if you did have to pretend you were all those different people that it was such a brave thing to do. Kind of made me worry at first but I’m over it.”

“Why’d it make you worry, baby?”

She shrugged and shook that necklace back and forth yet again. He caught her hand. “Tell me.”

“I guess I kind of worried about who you were being with me.”

“Nat.” He swore she killed him with her honesty. Honesty was never a good idea in foster care and never allowed in Army Intelligence. There was a time when he’d wondered if he would even be able to recognize the truth when it stared him in the face. Then he’d met her. “You want to know what just one of the most incredible things about making love with you last night was?” Unable to keep his hands from her, he traced the soft angles of her face. She nodded. “It was the first time in a lifetime when I felt like me. The first time I understood who I used to be and who I wanted to be for you. I wish I could explain it better. It was incredible.”

“You keep making me fall more and more in love with you.” Her tender vow mended another portion of his tattered heart.

“I plan to keep doing that if it’s okay with you.”

“It’s definitely okay with me.”

Ripping them from the moment of precious intimacy two of Amy Scofield’s girlfriends burst through the door, hooting with laughter. Aaron cringed. Natalie rolled her eyes.

“Great. The entire Pleasant Glen gossip column just arrived,” she said through her teeth.

“Maybe they’ll order wine. At least that’ll settle them down.”

Amy beelined over to them. “Did you all hear about the library getting broken into?”

Aaron grabbed a bar cloth and edged closer.

Natalie’s brow furrowed. “The library was broken into?” She joined their conversation. The ladies didn’t look any too thrilled with her interjection.

“That’s what she just said,” Tilda Herker huffed.

“Does Hope know?”

“Well, I’m sure she does since the sheriff was up there talking to her all morning.”

“She didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“Do all of you Camdens walk around your big-ass ranch telling each other every little thing, Natalie?”

“Do all of you Herkers have the corncobs shoved up your ass professionally installed or is it a do-it-yourself project like your boob job, Tilda?” Natalie thrust her finger at the wad of tissue emerging from the top of Tilda’s blouse.

Aaron choked back hysterical laughter as they shared a conspiratorial grin. Shoving her homemade padding back in its proper location, Tilda followed after Amy and Heidi Conlin like hens heading to the house.

“She is such a bitch,” Natalie fumed.

“I love you.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Well, that’s because I do.” He wondered how much of the library incident she would focus on.

“Did you hear that about the library?”

Weighing his options very carefully, Aaron knew if his conscience had any chance of survival he had to tell as much of the truth as he was able. “Yeah, I went up there this morning when I went to get my dogs. I was with Brock in the barn when Hope called him. It was right after you left with Holly.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Once I’m with you I can’t think of anything but you.” That was the truth with a twist, he decided.

“Was anything taken?”

“Didn’t look like it. Brock thinks it was probably some kids, some kind of football prank or something.”

“That’s strange though. Nothing ever happens here.”

“I got the impression Sheriff Wilheim is sick of people reminding him of that.”

“It’s true though. Why would anyone break into the library? Do people actually steal books?”

“People steal e-books all the time. I doubt they steal books from libraries too often though. Didn’t sound like they have any idea who did it.” A fact Aaron was supremely thankful for. “You want something to drink?”

“Sure. Whatever you want to kiss off of me.” That little mischievous grin she sported whenever she flirted with him shot another jolt of lust through him.

“Whatever I want to kiss off of you, huh?” Grabbing a glass, he made her a soda water. “I just want to taste you, baby. In every possible way I could mean that.”

He stared unabashedly at her tongue as it teased her bottom lip and then disappeared. “I want to do that too, you know.”

His cock leapt to attention. His crown swelled out a salute. Images of her on her knees before him, of him fucking her mouth filled his mind. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” She leaned closer so no one could hear their dirty banter. “I want to know what you taste like.”

A low grunt clawed up from his lungs freeing the question he longed to ask. “And if I ask you to swallow everything I give you what happens, honey?”

“I do it.”

“You drive me fucking wild, Nat. I swear you were a sub in a former life or something.”

“Maybe I just like you directing things. Maybe that really turns me on.”

“Maybe so.” He breathed the word across her lips as he leaned over the bar and devoured her mouth. To illustrate his point, she coaxed his tongue into her mouth and began sucking. She was timid and unsure. That only made it better. She wanted to learn to blow him. He sure as hell would teach her.

A rumbled growl of approval spilled into her mouth. Later, he’d spill himself between her lips, tell her to let him see it before she swallowed. Then he’d kiss his flavors from her mouth.

“Weber, you think you can get your tongue outta her mouth long enough to serve drinks?” Ed fumed.

Jerking away, Aaron counted backward from five. “Sorry, sir.”

“I don’t recall it being bring your girlfriend to work night. You’re this close, son. You ain’t the only idiot who knows how to pour shots in the town.”

Devastation cast Natalie’s beautiful face. Her lips were kiss-swollen and so ready for more. Aaron hated his job more and more with each passing moment.

“Hey, lay off him, Ed. Two kids in love. Nothing wrong with that,” bellowed from Mayor Kilroy who’d come in to check on Duke. “Whole damn town’s sick of your loud mouth anyway.”

A chorus of yeahs chanted from the crowd. Aaron caught the damp towel Ed hurled at his gut before he stalked back into the kitchen. Eliza’s scolding shrieks spilled out into the bar almost instantly.

“Sorry.” Natalie cringed.

“I feel like I should get a fucking medal for not ringing the last call bell after what you just offered me. He threatens to fire me at least once a week. As you can see, I have a bar full of job security. Don’t worry about it.”

If she traced her finger along the woodgrain in the bar once more, Natalie was going to lose her mind. Her fingertip was raw. It was five minutes until last call and she was counting the seconds. Flirting with Aaron made the time fly by but she would not lose him his job.

Constantly reviewing everything she’d admitted to him in the last two hours simultaneously served to embarrass her and enliven her. A heady sense of power was birthed deep inside her when she’d admitted that she liked when he directed their lovemaking. Tonight, she wanted more than she’d had the day before.

Eventually she wanted to know what he was like in full form. The same set of adjacent emotions taunted her again. She both appreciated the women who’d come before her and hated them.

“What’s the frown for?” Once again his voice reached through the mire of confusion in her head and pulled her out of the tidal waters.

“Nothing.” She refocused on those deep blue eyes.

“Not nothing. Tell me.”

“Eventually I’ll figure out how not to feel ashamed about the things I want to ask for and I’ll stop being afraid that if you do something I’ll have a panic attack, right? Time is supposed to heal all wounds or whatever.”

Compassion, worry, and love paraded through his gaze right after a flash of vengeance. Her heart pounded out a warning. “I’m not sure time does heal all wounds, sweetheart.” He came around the bar and wrapped his arms around her.

“You’re going to get in trouble again.”

“I don’t give a shit. You need me. That is all that will ever matter to me.” His pecs flexed against her cheek as he reached over her head and rang the bell just a little early. Tremendously thankful, she squeezed him tighter.

“What does heal wounds if it isn’t time?” she asked almost an hour later when he’d finally been able to leave the empty bar. The crunch of gravel under her boots disturbed the quiet night. Pleasant Glen was tucked in safe and secure just like always.

“I kind of figure it depends on the wound.” Exhaust assaulted the cool air as he cranked his truck. “Do you remember when you told me that your therapist explained to you that sometimes your dreams are your brain’s way of healing?”

“Yeah. Of all the times I talked with her that was the one thing that helped the most I think. It made me not hate myself for having them.”

“It kills me that you hated yourself for anything but I think fantasies can be the same way. That was the way Dec explained it to me anyway. Trusting me with some of them can help you keep what happened in the past from being in the present.”

“You talked to Dec about your sexual fantasies?” Natalie tried to process that. The thought of it scalded her cheeks.

“Not much. He knows a little bit about my past.”

“Oh.” So, Dec can know but I can’t. It’s a two-way street, Nat. Her mind readily came to Aaron’s defense, even taking up his verbiage as its banner. Sometimes she hated her brain. “What’s one of your fantasies then?”

She felt the hot lick of his gaze as he turned toward her. “I plan on showing you as soon as I get you home, baby.”

“But I want you to tell me now.”

“How about I tell you one we’re not going to do for a while?”

“Okay.”

“You on your knees, your hands behind your back, me feeding you my cock slowly and then faster. Seeing my pre-cum cover your sweet little mouth. My hands wrapped up in your hair. Feeling you moan instead of just hearing you. Then pulling out and coming all over your tits, watching it drip down your nipples. But I told you I like it dirty.”

Wet heat rushed to fill the lips of her pussy, readying her for him. It seeped into her panties. She needed him to free her from their constraint. “I like your kind of dirty.”

“Let me guess, I don’t get to hear one of yours.”

The direct challenge stirred the very marrow of her bones. She was a cowgirl and this time she wasn’t going to shy away. “You naked, tied to my bed with one of my lariats. I get to touch, and lick, and feel all of you. I don’t even know exactly what I want to do once I have you like that, but I know I want to taste you and to climb on top of you and ride you. I want to see the way you look when I do that. I want to be in control just for a little while. It morphs from there.”

An anguished sound of pure need filled the truck cab. “Morphs into what?” Carnality dominated his question.

“Into you taking control, taking what you want, making me beg just like you like.”

“How wet are you right this moment, sweetheart? How wet does me taking control make you?”

Riding the arc of electricity between them, she popped the snap on her jeans. “Why don’t you find out?”

Instead of his hand diving inside her panties like she’d envisioned, he stroked his fingers outside the cotton crotch. Her jeans trapped his hand there. Each touch made her eager for more. “Touch me,” she whimpered.

“No, baby. Tell me how bad you want my fingers against your clit. Tell me how empty you feel. Beg me.”

“So bad. Please.” Her body rolled. She spread her legs farther. “Please, please.”

Three fingers pressed wet cotton to her clit. The fabric amplified every stroke. “So wet, baby. You get so nice and wet for me.”

“Please touch me.”

“Not yet. Not until I’m good and ready.” He circled his fingers. The elastic bands taunted her lips. She wriggled in the seat and clawed at his forearm.

He growled out his adamant approval. “When I get you home, baby, my God, we are gonna make your fantasies come true. Every fucking one of them and a few of my own. Be ready for me. I’m gonna keep you so wet we have to change to sheets. I’m gonna make you drip for me. Down my throat, all over my cock, all over me.”