She sat on my workbench, legs dangling, face in hands, and she was—shit, she was crying.

I stood there, not sure what the hell to do. Yeah, I’d been in the same room as a crying woman before, but that didn’t mean it freaked me out any less. And Freya wasn’t just crying, she was sobbing so hard she hadn’t even heard me when I came in.

“Freya?” I said, louder this time.

She jolted, her head shooting up, and she quickly dragged her sleeve over her eyes. “I just needed a minute…to get some fresh air.” She attempted a smile and pointed to her watery eyes. “Now my hay fever’s playing up,” she lied.

I moved toward her, like she was a terrified animal, like she’d startle and bolt if I made any sudden movements. “You don’t have hay fever.” I took another step closer. “I’m sorry for yelling at you back there. It’s just…I freaked. I saw smoke and I reacted.”

She shook her head, and her eyes, which were looking down at her hands again, lifted to me. Big, beautiful, and glistening. “Am I that obvious?”

I nodded.

Her eyes closed briefly, and she drew in a shaky breath. “It’s not you…and it’s not just about burned buns.”

“Talk to me, Freya. What’s going on?” My heart felt like it was crawling up into my throat.

She glanced away.

“Freya?”

Her eyes came back to me, and my gut clenched at the look on her face. “I’m starting to think that this—us—it isn’t what either of us expected. That’s not your fault. It’s mine for building this into something it’s not…and I keep messing everything up.” She bit her lip and her face crumpled, fighting more tears.

My stomach sank. “Not what you expected?” I tried and failed to keep my voice even.

She offered up another watery smile. “We’ve been talking for six months, Beau. We’ve shared a lot of stuff with each other. We’ve had…intimate conversations. We organized this time together, and I thought…I assumed…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I think I should go home. This was a mistake.”

Go home? God, I sucked at this. She’d been here for one day and already she wanted to get away from me. Had I put too much pressure on her to be this ideal I’d built in my head? I was pretty sure I’d mess up under that kind of pressure. I hated feeling that way and I was doing exactly that to Freya.

“What did you assume? Talk to me, Freya,” I said again. Even though I didn’t want to talk—I wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss the hell out of her, make her stay. I wasn’t sure that was what she wanted anymore, though.

“The truth?” she said softly.

I nodded, gut suddenly in knots.

“I think it’s obvious that I’m attracted to you. I’ve felt that way from the moment I saw your picture. I looked at your face and I…I…” She cleared her throat. “I wanted to get to know you. I felt a connection to you.”

I’d felt the same way about her.

She blinked, and another tear streaked down her cheek. “I already feel like I know you, Beau. I don’t need time to be sure my feelings for you are real. I thought I’d get here and”—she turned scarlet—“we’d spent the first few days in bed. I thought you’d be as desperate for me as I am for you, but you’re not, and that’s okay. It’s not your fault. You can’t help the way you feel. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Just because I feel it, doesn’t mean you do. But this just feels…strange. I feel like I’m visiting a stranger, not my…boyfriend, not the guy I’ve thought about constantly for months.”

She really had no idea? How could she not see the way she affected me? I took a step forward, my hands coming down harder than I’d intended on the bench either side of her thighs.

She blinked at me again, eyes wide.

I wanted her so bad I was in constant pain. “You don’t think I want you?” I forced out past my tight throat.

She shook her head.

“I’ve been hard for you since you showed up. Christ, Freya, I’ve been hard for you since we started talking six months ago. I’m sorry for the mixed signals. I’ve gone about this all wrong. I’ve…” Shit. I couldn’t tell her I’d been secretly interviewing her for the position of Mrs. Beau Smith, and looking at her now, I felt like an asshole for the way I’d gone about it. She knew what I wanted, how I felt about love and relationships, but she had no clue this was some idiotic test. No, I didn’t want some big love—that only ever ended in disaster—and yes, I wanted a woman who could thrive out here with me, but whoever I married, we needed to have chemistry, and I felt that with Freya in goddamn spades. I didn’t know how to get that across to her, so instead I rasped, “I don’t want you to go.”

“Are you sure?” she said, voice soft, with a little husk that lifted goosebumps over my skin.

I placed my hands on her knees and spread her thighs, so I could fill the space. “Christ, Freya, I want you so damn bad I can’t think straight. I’ve tried to take things slow, I thought that was what was best for us, but don’t want that anymore,” I said.

My mouth was an inch from hers.

Her breath came in short pants. “You don’t?”

I shook my head. “Fuck no.” I thrust my fingers in her hair, groaning at the softness of it against my skin, and closed the gap between us. My mouth came down on hers and I groaned again, all the pent-up hunger I had for her slamming through me like a tidal wave so intense it had the ability to knock me on my ass.

Her hands went to my sides and she fisted the fabric of my shirt, pulling me closer. My dick was an iron bar, hot and pulsing as I slid a hand down her back, yanked her forward on the bench, and ground my erection against her.

She gasped against my lips. “Beau…”

The way she said my name only amped me higher, and the way I was feeling, I had no idea how that was possible. I’d never been more turned on in my life. “You wet for me?” I muttered against her lips. “That pussy ready for me, honey?”

One of her hands shoved down the back of my pants and she dug her nails into my ass. She whimpered. “Yes, God, so ready.”

“I want to feel it. Are you going to let me feel it, Freya?” I had no control over the words coming out of my mouth at this point. I just wanted her. Now.

“Yes,” she rasped.

I shoved one of my hands down the front of her tights and cupped her pussy. Her panties were soaked. Jesus. Yanking them aside, I finally touched her. A hiss slid through my teeth at just how hot and wet she was.

“So many things, Freya, so many things I’ve imagined doing to you while I stroked my cock to your picture. It didn’t help, just made me want you more.”

She whimpered again.

“Did you touch yourself thinking about me? Wishing it was me? Imagining it was me getting you off?” I said, control gone now, shattered.

“Yes,” she said.

My hips punched forward at her reply. “Jesus Christ. Can you feel that? Can you feel how much I want you? Don’t ever doubt that, Freya, never that.” I pushed a finger into her tight pussy and watched her head drop back, and her lips part on a moan. “I’m going to make you come, honey, so hard, then I’m going to show you exactly how bad I want you.”

I slid my thumb over her stiff, slick little clit, then circled it while I worked her, sliding in nice and deep. I needed to see more of her, so I yanked her shirt down at the front, hooking it under her tits, and growled at the way her bra barely contained all she had going on. I shoved down one of the cups and cursed when her creamy breast, tipped with a dark pink nipple, popped free.

“Jesus, look at you,” I gritted out. “So perfect.” I lowered my head and pressed my lips to her pale skin, breathing in the scent of her skin, and then finally sucking her small hard nipple into my mouth. She cried out, her fingers thrusting into my hair, fisting, holding me there like she thought I’d pull away. Like hell.

I added a second finger, fucking her faster, and got serious—no more teasing her clit. I pressed down on it, flicking and rubbing. She cried out at the same time I felt her tightening around my fingers.

And then she was coming, calling my name. She fisted my hair tighter and dragged my head to hers, giving me the hottest fucking kiss of my life, her tongue thrusting against mine in time with the pulsing of her pussy and the agonizing throb along my painfully hard cock.

Her hands dropped to the front of my pants while we continued to eat at each other’s mouths.

“I need you,” she said against my lips.

Not as much as I need you.

“Beau! You out here?” someone called from outside the barn.

I froze.

“Beau, man, you here?”

I knew that voice: a friend of mine from Eaglewood. What I didn’t know was why the hell he was here now. I cursed, pulling back, and looked down at Freya, who was flushed but fully alert and scrambling off the workbench.

“Sorry,” I said to her. “I need to go see what he wants.”

She flushed darker. “Of course.”

Christ, I wanted inside her.

The door to the barn opened before we could reach it.

Ed’s gaze landed on me then slid to Freya, then shot back to me.

“What are you doing out here, Ed?”

Ed shifted from foot to foot, looking antsy as hell. “It’s the old man. I need your help.”

With those two sentences, I was on full alert. “What happened?”

“We were out here hunting. He slipped down a bank and busted his ankle. I need help getting him out.”

I was already walking toward him. “Of course. Let me get my stuff and we’ll head out. We’ll swing over to Hank’s and grab him as well,” I said, striding for the house. I rushed upstairs, changed, loaded my pack with supplies in case we were out all night, and shoved back on my boots.

Freya was standing by the door, looking worried. I stopped in front of her. “I want you to stay here, stay inside, okay?”

She nodded.

“I’m not sure what time I’ll be back, so don’t wait up.” I leaned in and kissed her lips, still swollen from our make-out session in the barn.

She curled her fingers around my wrist when I started to walk away. I stopped and turned back.

“Be careful, Beau.”

I dipped my chin and walked out, and as I did, I couldn’t ignore the feeling unfurling in my gut. I didn’t know what it was—couldn’t name it—I just knew it felt good, really fucking good.

Knowing that Freya would be there when I got home…I liked it.

I liked it a whole lot.