Roan

I spot movement at the edge of the clearing and tension hums through my body, tightening every muscle and ligament, bringing blood surging through me as Lucy steps out from behind a tree at the edge of the clearing, head cocked, and sun shining on her glossy, crow-black hair. “What is this place, Roan?”

“This is my place. Private property.” I straighten to my full height, which is not small, and give her a good staredown. I can’t believe the little minx has tracked me all the way out here when I specifically began restoring this place to get away from her and the Haven.

“I was hunting and found a path.” Lucy shrugs and walks toward me, wearing a scoop-necked green tee that showcases her spectacular rack, tucked into worn jeans that look painted on. Her scuffed, dirty boots contrast with the gleaming rifle I gave her, a hunting piece with a nice walnut stock. A bobwhite quail dangles from the wire loop that I made for her. “Pinocchio smelled something. He led me here.” JT’s brown-patched Catahoula trots forward to join Shadow on the porch, wagging his tail.

I can feel Lucy’s gaze on my body like she’s touching me. Heat flushes, tightening my nipples to hard points and my groin throbs. I hate what she does to me, so easily, so often, with no effort at all.

I’m done pretending I don’t know what she’s up to. “You followed me out here. This is my place. And it’s private.”

“I did not. I was hunting.” She gestures to the quail at her waist then glances back at the cabin. “I knew you were sneaking off somewhere. Had no idea it was to play house by yourself in the woods.” Her voice is brittle, the way it goes when her feelings are hurt by something I’ve said or done—not that it puts her off. She just comes back at me another day, another way, and I’m hanging onto resistance by a thread as she reaches me.

Lucy has a full mouth with a curl to her lips that makes her look like she’s always smiling. At the smell of the tanning, her little nose wrinkles and her pouty lips pooch up. Everything she does is adorable, damn it.

“Ew. Stinks.” She looks down at the rabbit skin in my hands. “Tanning. I always wondered how you did that.”

I look over at the jar of brains. I know how to send Little Miss City Girl on her way. “I’ll teach you, if you like. Just about ready for another layer of brains. Want to rub them in?”

Her big, dark eyes with those thick black Luciano lashes lift to mine. Determination kicks in as she tightens that kissable mouth into a line.

“Brains. Okay. You got it.” She puts her rifle down, unclips the loop with the bird on it, and steps up to me.

Oh, God, that strawberry shampoo she always uses. She must have brought a vat of it when she came out here from Philly. The scent teases me, battling the smell of the tanning.

She scoops a handful of the brains out of the jar and gulps, but rubs them gamely into the skin as I hold it stretched over the post.

Up, down. Around and around.

It’s disgusting, but somehow she’s making it sexy, making it about how she’d like to touch me.

“Enough.” My voice is hoarse. I hand her the smaller scraper, the one I used for the last pass. “I’ll stretch the skin open and tight for you.”

Everything we say or do seems to be about sex. Thankfully, Lucy keeps her head bent, not speaking, and I get to look at her sweet curves as she works. The motion makes her little round butt push out and her full breasts bounce. The girl’s waist is so small my hands could probably span it. The scent of strawberries mixed with the heat of her exertion makes my nostrils flare.

She’s right in front of me, mine for the taking.

My pulse roars. I’m so hard it hurts.

It’s embarrassing. Maybe she won’t notice. I don’t want to encourage her. I can’t let her know how she affects me.

And I can’t believe she just scooped the brains out and rubbed them around without complaining.

Lucy finishes the scraping and keeps her head down. “Do you want to do it—again? More?” Her voice is husky.

My hands are filthy, I’m sweaty, and all I can think about is how damn close she is and that there’s a bed not far away. “That’s enough. Let’s wash up.”

I put the lid on the tanning mixture, and walk to the porch to hang the skin beside the others on the drying rack.

“What are you doing with those skins?” Lucy asks.

I take a jar of homemade, cedar-scented soap out from under the step and walk back where she’s standing next to the pump.

“Making something.” I don’t want to tell her it’s a bed covering—don’t want to put the image of those soft furs draped over a mattress in both of our minds. “Get the bucket under the flow, please.”

Lucy places the nearby tin pail beneath the gush of water that splashes out as I work the pump handle. She looks up at me with heat in her eyes. “I could watch you do that all day, Roan.”

My name comes out on a breathy sigh. I love the way it sounds when she says it.

I’m going to bust my breeches. “Here’s the soap.” I hand it to her.

She unscrews the lid and rubs some on her hands, sniffs. “Smells good. You made this, didn’t you?”

“I make everything out here.” It’s part of why I love this place. I enjoy being self-sufficient.

I scoop double handfuls of water from the bucket and splash it onto my torso and arms. Digging some of the soft soap out of the jar, I lather it on myself.

I don’t look at her, but my movements slow.

My hands slide up my arms, feeling the heavy muscle. They glide over the hard ridges of my abdominals, the arcs of my chest, and the knots of my nipples. My hips rotate forward…I don’t mean to, but I’m touching myself in front of her, as sexy and slow as I can make it, imagining her hands on me.

Finally, I scoop water and splash it on myself to rinse, hoping it will cool me down. But when I sneak a glance at Lucy from under my lashes, she’s staring at me, mouth ajar, eyes glassy—and it makes me even hotter.

“I’ll do your back,” she whispers.

“Only if I can do yours.”

I almost bite my tongue off as she grabs the edge of her tee, tugs it out of her jeans, and whips it off over her head, tossing it into the grass.

Full breasts strain the black lace bra binding them. The flare of her hips makes my hands twitch with the need to grab her. I love everything about her extreme curves, and have since the first day I saw her. And she knows it.

Lucy stares at me defiantly, her cheeks red. “You first.”

I turn very slowly, and she pours water over my back. It trickles down my spine and into my breeches. Goosebumps erupt everywhere that her small hands, slippery with soap, slide over my skin.

She’s moving slow: up and down. Back and forth. Around and around.

Lucy rinses me, one handful of water at a time, as I stand like a statue: a painful, throbbing statue. Thank God, I’m turned away from her because there’s no way she could miss the erection straining the front of my pants.

“There. Done. Now me.” Her voice is husky.

I turn, and her eyes drop to take in the obvious. “I’m only human. You don’t really want me to do…this.”

I must keep her away—but every atom in me is straining toward her, iron to a magnet.

“Roan.” The pleading in her voice twists my heart like wringing out a washcloth. “Please.”

I reach out and touch the base of her throat with two fingers, resting them lightly in the hollow above her breasts. Her heart pounds like the fluttering of a small and terrified animal whose life is about to be taken.

“Are you afraid of me?” My voice drops to a whisper.

“I’m afraid you don’t want me. I’m afraid you don’t feel the same.”

To hell with the consequences.

To hell with JT and her other brothers. To hell with the fact that she can do so much better. Doesn’t matter. For whatever reason, this girl has chosen me—and she is mine.

I take a step to stand so close that her face is level with my chest. She’s so much shorter, a little woman I can tuck into my bed and cherish in a hundred ways. But so strong! Tougher than her brothers, any day, and so full of passion.

I lift Lucy’s damp hand in one of mine and scoop out some of the soap. I rub our hands and interlaced fingers together, sliding, touching, working up a slight, slippery foam. Our hands rise parallel to our bodies, interlaced as we play with each other’s fingers. Her warm brown eyes hold mine, bemused, and she sways toward me, her breathing hypnotic.

I stretch our clasped, soapy hands wide and give a tug. She falls forward and lands flush with my body. Lucy gives a little gasp, and I lean down into that small sound to take her mouth.

She couldn’t possibly have been eating strawberries, but that’s what she tastes like as I fall into her, consume her… This moment is everything I need, all that I want, all that she’s promised me in a thousand tiny ways over the last months—and as she melts against me, her knees sagging, I know this is all she’s craved too.

“Lucy,” I breathe into her mouth. “I want to touch you. But this soap…”

“Touch me,” she says. “Dirty me up with it, and wash me down after.”

“If your brothers…”

“Screw my brothers,” she snarls, and wraps herself around me. God, she’s fierce, a tigress, and I can’t stop from taking all she’s giving, and giving it back in return.

We’re both soaked and a writhing, yearning mess of soap and water when a yap from Shadow on the porch brings me around like a slap in the face.

I’ve got Lucy in my arms, her center against my crotch, her butt resting on the precarious bar of the hitching post, her legs wrapped around me. Her hands are tangled in my hair and I’m holding her by that butt while my mouth is on the cherry of her nipple through her bra—but Shadow’s warning reminds me that we’re out in the open, where anyone can see us.

And we’re vulnerable. Outside the protective walls of the Haven, anyone could find us, making out and distracted. With the Scorch Flu ravaging the country, even remote spots are places human wolves hunt.

And I remember who we are.

Lucy’s the beloved, coddled baby sister of the Luciano family.

And I’m a half-breed with a record, and nothing to offer but a few rabbit skins.

I kiss her luscious mouth one more time, before sliding her to the ground. “You need to go home, Lucy.”