Chapter Fourteen
Shane took them to the highest point on Waterford Farm, the place they called the lookout. He had, possibly a hundred times in his life, stopped here with Garrett, Liam, and Aidan after a hard six or seven rounds on Mud Road to chill and relive every minute of fun.
In the spring and summer, they’d be covered with mud, as he and Chloe were now. Vibrating from the engine, tired, sweaty, sore, and exhilarated.
He was all those things as he climbed off and unclipped his helmet, then helped her do the same thing. Her whole body was quivering, so he knew she felt all of that, and more. Well, the screams of delight, the whoops of fun, and the desperate clinging to his waist kind of gave it away.
“You liked it,” he said as he got her on the ground.
She yanked off the helmet, still catching her breath, her dark hair spilling all over her shoulders as it came out of a loosely held ponytail. “I…did not like it.” She closed her eyes, and he made a face, not expecting her to—
“I loved it.” She grabbed his head and pulled him in for a hot, demanding kiss, like putting an exclamation point on her elation.
“Whoa, yeah.” He pulled off his gloves and tossed them, threading his hands into her hair to intensify the mouth-to-mouth. “I knew you would.”
It was like she couldn’t contain all the new feelings, and that all translated into more kissing, her hands all over his chest, which was, she might not have noticed, drenched in mud.
“Oooh. I like Dirty Chloe,” he murmured.
She pulled him down to the ground, which required zero effort, and in a second, they were on a mix of grass and dirt, with him on the bottom and her on top, both of them frantic in the need to kiss and touch and finally give in to the electricity that had been arcing since the day they’d met.
She fumbled with the zipper of his jacket, a little desperate to get to what was underneath. Laughing, he rolled them over and took the jacket off, then unzipped hers and helped her out of it. Half sitting, half lying, they both took a second to catch their breath and stare at each other.
“How’s it feel to be this filthy?” he asked on a whisper.
“It feels…liberating. Different. Normal.”
“Does that mean you like it?”
“I like…” She reached for his head to drag him down. “This.”
He kissed her again, slower this time, taking a moment to taste her and smell the wind and dirt and air of home all over her. She moaned softly as he dragged his hand from her throat down, down, down over her body. She moved under him, arching her back in a silent invitation to touch more.
“You taste like dirt,” she murmured into a kiss.
“Good, huh?”
“Delicious.” She delved her tongue into his mouth and touched his chest with the same appreciation he was using on her.
Somebody had officially lost control. Finally.
Their legs wrapped around each other, and they rolled again, Chloe crying out a little when a stone dug into her back.
“It’s okay,” she assured him, pulling him back. “It’s okay.”
He laughed at her exuberance. “You know, this place is called the lookout, not the make out,” he said.
She took a deep breath and turned her head one way, then the other. “Okay. I looked.” Then she reached up and grabbed him for another kiss. “Make out.”
Happily, he obliged. And found new places to kiss under her ear and down her throat, tasting salt and grit and skin and Chloe. “You really did like that ride,” he joked in between kisses.
“You knew I would.” She found a few places of her own to kiss, sending fire through his veins and way too much blood southbound. “You planned this.”
“Not this.” He eased a finger under a lacy bra, making her shudder at the contact. “I did not plan…” Lowering his head, he put his mouth over her bra, already reaching behind her to get the thing off.
“Shane.”
“Mmm?”
“We’re doing this?”
He lifted his head. “We’re doing something.”
She didn’t speak, holding his gaze as he slowly dragged his hand from the back to the front, under the bra, closing his palm over the curve of a sweet breast, her nipple budding in his hand.
Her jaw loosened as she fought for a breath. “That’s really…nice.”
“No kidding. Let me taste.” He dipped down and kissed the skin, suckling her while she rocked under him. He fought for control, instinctively knowing she’d need things to be as slow as he could stand to make them.
“You made me leave my bag,” she said.
He lifted his head, thrown by the statement that made no sense in his blood-starved brain.
“I brought condoms.”
And that made him smile. “You sly dog.” And then he remembered his wallet was in the ATV shed. “And way smarter than I am.”
“We can’t—”
“I know, I know,” he assured her. “But we can…” He moved his hand over her belly, thumbing the button of her jeans. “Play.”
A flash of warning in her eyes stopped him from opening the jeans.
“Too dirty for you?” he guessed. “Too many germs if I…” He inched a finger below the waistband. “Touch you.” He lowered his head to whisper. “And make you lose control in a very, very good way?”
He felt her shake her head and barely whisper, “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”
He kissed her ear and leaned up again. “Just let me give you pleasure.”
“I can’t,” she said, adding a meaningful look. “Like, literally.”
He couldn’t have heard that right. She said she brought condoms, so surely she could, but… “Do you mean… Is an orgasm against your rules or something?”
She bit her lip. “It doesn’t happen for me. I mean it has…alone.”
“Oh. Oh.” He shook his head. “This is not right.”
She laughed now, closing her eyes. “I knew you’d take it as the ultimate Shane Kilcannon must-win challenge.”
“Hell yeah,” he insisted. “Right here, right now, sweetheart.”
Her laugh faded. “You can’t.”
He gave her his best you gotta be kidding me look. “You’re not even going to let me try?”
“I…”
He didn’t wait for her lame response, dipping his mouth to hers to quiet her with a kiss. She didn’t argue, but kissed him back, letting him take his sweet time, letting him roam her bare breasts and heat her whole body to a point where all she could do was sigh when he unzipped her jeans.
He needed only to touch her. Just a gentle, easy, perfectly placed finger…
She gasped when he found that place, closed her eyes, and bit her lip.
“Look at me, Chloe,” he urged. “Look at me.”
She slowly opened her lids, her eyes so dark with arousal he couldn’t tell the iris from the pupil. It was all deep and dark and locked on him.
“Relax,” he whispered. “Let me touch you. Like this. And this. And…”
She lifted her hips, letting him deeper inside her. “Shane…oh, Shane.”
“There.” He had her now. Had her. Held her, kissed her, found her sweetest spot and whispered her name and all he could do to her in her ears until she reached up and dug her nails into his shoulders.
“Let go, Chloe. Let go and let me have you.”
With a whimper, he watched her unravel, clinging to him, rocking against his hand, her body vibrating as he eased her over the edge to satisfaction. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and melted into a breathless release.
“Now you’ve learned the most important lesson of all,” he finally whispered.
“How to lose control in broad daylight when covered in dirt?”
He laughed softly. “Never, ever give me a challenge.”
She managed to open one eye, turn her head, and peek at him. “You made it seem effortless.”
“I’m really trying not to gloat, but it’s difficult not to.”
“You deserve to gloat. You got me riding in mud and basking in the afterglow all in one afternoon.”
He leaned over and kissed her, brushing some hair from her cheeks. “Not to diminish my expertise or anything, but you were basically wired to explode any second.”
“All this time with you, I guess.”
He fell back with a thud. “And she wonders why I’m a cocky son of a bitch.”
“You’re not a son of a bitch,” she said, pulling him back to her. “You’re wonderful, and you make me feel…normal.”
“If normal is perfect, then yeah. Good enough to eat next time.”
Her eyes widened.
“Aaaannd I crossed the line,” he teased. “Sorry.”
“Sex is so…messy.”
“I hate to break it to you, Chloe, but we are literally lying on dirt and grass, covered in mud, and probably being feasted on by a critter or two. You haven’t died of the mess.”
“Not yet. Tomorrow I could be in the ER.”
He lifted up. “Really? That’s what you’re worried about? That you’ll get sick?”
She didn’t answer for a long time. But she had something to say, he could tell. So he waited, still, close, patient. The way he would with a broken dog who was about to put two and two together and figure out what got rewarded.
“You know I told you I lived with my mother, alone, growing up.”
He nodded.
“She was crazy.” At his look, she shook her head. “Like, literally not right. She was a filthy, messy, disorganized, distracted…pig. My home growing up was a sea of boxes that should have been thrown away, clothes that were never in place, magazines, papers, mail, stupid things she found that she wouldn’t let go of…lamps, pictures, crap.” Her voice cracked with anger. “It was so unfair. So awful. Such a flagrant way of telling me she didn’t love me. And I was sick. Allergic to dust, which was like snow in my house, and mites and molds and paper and…you name it.”
“It’s unthinkable to live like that,” he said, stroking her arm in a way that gave sympathy, but he knew it wasn’t enough. “Where was your father?”
“They never married, but my dad worked in a coal mine and died in an accident when I was a baby. Our only family was my aunt. A couple times a year, my aunt Blanche would come to town and take me away. She was my godmother and, believe me, Cinderella didn’t do any better. My mom was very protective and really didn’t like Blanche, but she lost the battle. My aunt would take me to a pretty hotel, and we’d shop and go out to dinner. We didn’t talk about my home life or my mom. We still don’t, really, but she knew how hard it was to grow up like that.”
“And that’s what made you a neat freak.”
She turned to him. “Please don’t say that. Don’t imply that I’m not normal, because it’s my greatest fear that I’m going to turn out like her.”
He stroked her cheek, regretting the comment. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “How’d you manage to get out of there? How’d you find a way to study and get to college and build a career?” All of that must have taken one helluva lot of willpower and discipline, especially without the help and love from parents that he had always taken for granted.
She shrugged. “I had my sanctuary, my room, so clean you could eat off the floor, and I did occasionally when I couldn’t bear the kitchen. And I was smart, got good grades. I didn’t have a social life, because friends would mean I’d have to bring them to my house, and I would never do that. I got scholarships and took off after high school for Lexington and UK and never went home except for very brief visits and her funeral.”
“How did she die?” he asked.
“She got an infection after a routine surgery, which, I’m sorry, was probably her own fault.”
“So it didn’t crush you when she died?”
“I spent my life mad at my mother,” she admitted. “When she died, I was twenty-five. I was finally able to let go of some of that hate. It’s a slow process, because I was well and truly formed by then, including my, um, habitual tidiness.”
“So different from when my mother died,” he whispered, vaguely aware that he slid her T-shirt back down and tucked her closer to him. “That’s when I got—what did you call me? Cynical?”
She turned to him, searching his face. “I bet she wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“No, she wouldn’t have,” he said, feeling a punch of guilt. “But I can’t change.”
“Really? You can change other people—make them fall for dogs and ride in mud and get all kinds of messy—but you can’t change yourself? Maybe you haven’t met the right person to make you…what’s the opposite of cynical?”
“Trusting? Secure? Hopeful?”
“Are you any of those things?” she asked.
“Not since she died,” he said softly. “You were full of hate, but I was full of love. And it all evaporated when she left us. I still haven’t forgiven her.”
She inched up. “Forgiven her? For having a heart attack at fifty-five?”
He turned away, but she took his chin and made her face him. “Yeah, I’m mad about it,” he admitted.
She stared at him, her impossibly deep brown eyes glinting with gold in the sun, with sympathy and warmth and a promise of something he…something he wanted and couldn’t even articulate.
And it wasn’t sex. At least, not only sex.
A cold, crazy sweat stung the back of his neck.
“Well, that’s all kinds of wrong,” she said, sitting up all the way.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” he admitted, knowing that wouldn’t change a thing.
After a moment, she reached behind her and hooked her bra, then stood, slowly zipping up her jeans. He didn’t move because he didn’t even understand what he was feeling.
Chloe.
What if she was the right one? What if she was the one-in-a-zillion person for him? What if—
“Will you let me drive the ATV back?”
He blinked at her, the change of subject throwing him—and relieving him a little, too. “Can you?” Can you change me back, Chloe?
“If you don’t mind going really, really slow.”
But the problem was, he was falling really, really fast.