“Me either. Outside.”
“I’m not doing this outside with all these dogs around.”
“No.” She choked out a laugh, struggled to stay on her feet as they groped each other. “I’m telling the dogs to stay outside.”
“Good thinking.” He dragged her onto the back deck, through the door.
He yanked off her jacket, shoved her against the wall. As desperation spiked, she dragged at his shirt.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“No, I mean—I know you’re happy to see me, but I really think that’s an actual hammer pressing into my... Oh God.”
He pulled back, glanced down. “Shit. Sorry.” And unstrapped his tool belt, dumped it on the floor.
“Just let me—” She shoved his unbuttoned work shirt aside, then pulled up the T-shirt he wore beneath. “Oh,
“Okay.” With that he tore her shirt open, popping buttons into the air.
She should’ve been shocked, possibly annoyed—it had been a decent shirt—but the sound of ripping cloth followed by the rough hands on her breasts shot her within a hairbreadth of the edge.
She shuddered, grinding against him, urgent sounds humming in her throat as she fumbled with his zipper. He tugged hers down, one quick, impatient motion, then slid his hand in, down, over. He watched her face, watched those calm eyes glaze like blue glass as she erupted against him. Then he took her mouth again and drove her until she went limp.
“No, you don’t,” he murmured when she started to slide down the wall.
The simplest solution was to toss her over his shoulder and find the handiest flat surface. He dumped her on the dining room table, shoved debris aside. Whatever crashed and shattered could be replaced.
Because he wanted her naked, he pulled off her boots. “Your belt, undo it.”
“What? Oh.” Like a shock victim, she stared at the ceiling while she unhooked her belt. “Am I on the table?”
He pulled her pants down her legs by the hems.
“Am I naked on the table?”
“Not quite yet.”
But close enough. He wanted his hands on every inch that was, every inch that wasn’t. He dealt with his own boots, pants, then climbed on to straddle her.
“Handy,” he decided when he noted the front hook of her bra. He flipped it, then simply lowered to devour.
“Oh. God.” She arched, her hands fisting on the table before she dug her fingers into his back. “Thank God. Don’t stop. Just don’t stop.”
He used his teeth, and she thought she’d go mad. Too much, too much, this tidal wave of needs and pleasures and demands. And yet her body consumed them, starved for more.
She heard cloth ripping again and realized he’d torn her panties away.
She was being ravished, she thought as she gasped for air—and the little kernel of shock only added to the wild thrill.
She tried to say his name, to slow things down—just enough to breathe—or to give back. But he shoved her knees back and drove into her. Hard as steel, fast as lightning. And she could only cry out and ride the storm.
She closed around him when she came, squeezing like a fist. The sensation only whipped him on. He’d wanted her, and that want had sharpened over the last days. But now, with that long, tight body quaking under his, those surprising and sexy muscles taut under his hands, that want turned its keen edge inside him.
He took until she went lax, then took more until that edge sliced through him and emptied him out.
She heard music. Angels singing? she thought, dizzy. It seemed odd for angels to sing after table sex. She managed to swallow on a throat wildly dry.
“Music,” she murmured.
“My phone. In my pants. Don’t care.”
“Oh. Not angels.”
“No. Def Leppard.”
“Okay.” She managed to find the energy to lift her hand, stroke it down his back. “Once again, I have to say thank you, Simon.”
“No problem.”
She let out a rusty laugh. “That’s good because I don’t think I did much of the work.”
“Am I complaining?”
She smiled, closed her eyes and kept stroking his back. “Where are we, exactly?”
“It’s the dining-room-slash-downstairs-office area. For now.”
“So we had sex on your dining-room-slash... workstation.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you make the table?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s very smooth.” A giggle tickled her throat, then escaped. “And remarkably sturdy.”
“I do good work.” He lifted his head then, looked down at her. And smiled. “It’s cherry with a birch inlay. Pedestal style. I was going to sell it, but now—maybe not.”
“If you change your mind, I’d like first bid.”
“Maybe. Obviously it suits you.”
She touched a hand to his cheek. “Can I get some water? I feel like I climbed Mount Constitution without a bottle.”
“Sure.”
She lifted her eyebrows when he rolled off the table and strode, naked, out of the room. She was pretty comfortable with her own body, but she couldn’t see herself walking around her house naked.
Still, he looked damn good doing it.
She sat up, took a breath, started to stretch with a huge smile on her face. Then stopped in shock. They’d just had crazed sex on the dining room table, in front of open, uncurtained windows. She could see the dogs romping, his drive, her own car.
Anyone could’ve driven up, hiked up from the beach, out of the woods.
When he walked back in with a bottle of water, already uncapped and half empty, she pointed. “Windows.”
“Yeah. Table, windows, ceiling, floor. Here.” He passed her the bottle. “I started it, you can finish it off.”
“But windows. Daylight, open.”
“It’s a little late to get shy now.”
“I didn’t realize.” She took a long drink, then another. “It’s probably for the best. But next time—if you’re interested in next times.”
“I’m not done with you yet.”
“That’s a very Simon way to put it.” She took another, slower drink. “Next time I think we should try for a little more privacy.”
“You were in a hurry.”
“I have no argument.”
He smiled at her again. “You make a hell of a centerpiece. All I need is a picture of you, sitting there in the middle of the table, your hair catching just the right amount of sun, all messy around your face, and those long legs drawn up right below those very pretty breasts. I could get a freaking fortune for that table.”
“No dice.”
“I’ll give you thirty percent.”
She laughed, but wasn’t entirely sure he was joking. “And still no. I wish I didn’t have to, but I need to get dressed and go.”
