A hundred feet down the other side of the ridge was a newly constructed building, its dimensions some ten feet by ten feet.

“The new warming station,” he scratched out.

His grip loosened and he took a step and a turn so that he faced Sage.

“I can’t keep retreating,” he said. “Not when your body responds like it does, not when I see you day in and day out fitting so perfectly into my life even when it’s not my life you’re a part of.”

Sage nodded. Saints knew she wanted him. But she needed more than a fling with a man like Adler Turk.

Gently, he led Sage down the incline to the building. The door was unlocked. They entered. Adler put a cross bar up then pulled the shades down.

A new vinyl couch took up most of one wall. The opposite wall had cupboards, a sink and a propane stove. There was also something that looked like an extruded closet. Sage figured there was some kind of toilet hiding behind its door.

“Take a seat,” Adler suggested.

When Sage complied, he began to pace, his fingers running through his short hair.

“You didn’t say whether you wanted to stay on,” he said, his boots still cutting a path across the new floor.

Suddenly he stopped and faced her, his body dead center in the room.

“I want you to stay,” he said. “Not for the ranch or for Leah’s sake and Mama’s. I want you to stay for me.”

As dazed as if she’d fallen off Calamity and cracked her head on a rock, Sage nodded. Adler walked over and dropped to his knees. His hands wrapped around Sage’s hips. His head lowered, its crown pressing against her stomach as his breathing slowed to something deeper.

Mesmerized she watched his shoulders rise and sink, savored the dig of his fingertips against her cushioned sides.

She didn’t touch him, was afraid to. She had known Adler a little more than a month, worked with him almost as long, but she still didn’t know what to make of the man.

Too much self-control, she thought, all of it wrapped around something wild and wanting to break free.

“We can still go back to the horses,” he whispered. “I promised you no funny business.”

“Is this funny to you?” she softly asked, her hands sliding closer to both of their bodies.

Adler looked up, the dark blue eyes lancing across her face.

“I’m dead serious, Sage. I want you, want to possess you in the most selfish, demanding ways possible. But I would rather leave Willow Gap than drive you away from the family. I don’t think you realize how much you mean to everyone.”

She shook her head. “You can’t drive me away.”

Her hands drifted to Adler’s then traced the outward line of his arms up to his shoulders. She ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing the wild mess he had made as he paced.

“Sit with me,” she asked.

He eased back and shook his head. He cupped the back of one boot, down by her heel, and pulled it off. The other boot followed and then Adler started on removing Sage’s shirt, unthreading the pearl white buttons to expose a jade green bra trimmed in lace.

She watched his face as he worked. Without trying to, she mimicked the expressions that flickered across its surface. The bite of his bottom lip, the slight arch of one brow, the flaring of his nostrils.

And when he tugged her shirt free of her jeans and groaned, Sage groaned with him.

She had never felt sexy enough to let a lover undress her. It was different with Adler, his intense gaze following the gentle brush of his fingertips as he unfastened her jeans. It was a sensual reverence that made her body feel worshipped.

Sage lifted her hips. Adler stripped the denim away but left the matching jade green panties on.

He turned his attention to freeing her hair from the braid, letting it spill around her shoulders as he peeled the work shirt down her arms.

Cupping her chin with a firm grip, Adler guided Sage so that her back was against and arching over the couch’s armrest. He coaxed one leg off the piece of furniture and filled the gap between her thighs, looming over Sage to kiss her mouth and throat.

His hand moved between their torsos. His fingers slid under one bra cup to pinch and pull at the nipple until he had it at an aching point. Pushing the fabric aside, he freed the breast and abandoned Sage’s mouth.

In a slow feasting, Adler sucked the nipple, his hand discovering new areas of interest to explore.

“So wet, baby,” he murmured, his fingers spreading the juices of her pussy up and over her clit.

Planting hard, sucking kisses on both breasts, Adler teased the hard button between her slick folds. He pinched, soothed, stroked. He cupped her with an iron grip then feathered his thumb down the length of that rigid spine.

Sage moaned for more. She wanted him naked, wanted her nails raking his back, wanted her fingers wrapped around the thick cock she had only seen hints of in the past.

“Please,” she begged. “I want you in me.”

“You’ll have me in you,” Adler promised, his mouth moving lower. “You’ll have me in you over and over, baby.”

Tonguing at Sage’s clit, Adler stroked two fingers deep inside her core. She whimpered in protest.

“I know what you want,” he teased. “But you can’t have it today.”

Her protest turned to a growl, but Adler persisted in his denial.

“Let me have you like this,” he said, his hot breath fanning against her sensitive clit. “Let me give you pleasure.”

It would please her to have Adler inside, Sage thought before he sucked her clit back into his mouth and her brain ceased functioning.

“That’s it,” he murmured in appreciation, a third finger joining the first two.

His lips left her clit to slowly tug at the fine blond hairs covering her mound. His thumb replaced the tension on her hot button.

Fingers in, out. Thumb up, down. The pattern seesawed along her spine to reach every pleasure center in her brain. Sage moved with him, whimpering and moaning, her hands squeezing first at air and then at her swollen breasts heavy with need.

“So beautiful, Sage,” Adler sighed, dusting kisses along her thighs as his fingers and thumb drove her closer and closer to release. “Beautiful that first day, barefoot and singing as you washed the dishes. Beautiful in the office, chewing on a pencil as you make everything run smoother.”

Pulling back, Adler looked over Sage’s body. The arch of her neck, the upward thrust of her breasts, her nipples pinched between her fingers, the clenched stomach and thighs as her mouth trembled at the precipice of climax.

And there, where his hand possessed her so intimately, her slick muscles squeezing him back in ageless communication.

“So fucking beautiful,” he whispered one last time before his lips touched Sage’s fevered flesh and she began to sing in earnest.