He’d watched her all day make huge snap decisions, drop buckets of money in a flash, direct and strategize and inspire a group of people who felt the universe was working against them. She’d been mammoth. Right now, she was fragile under his hands, between his knees. Right now, with the nostalgic scent of soil in his nose and the rustle of the breeze in his ears, she was the girl he’d fallen in love with and the woman, his instincts yelled, who needed him.
She listed forward, like a vine bending to the wind, and pressed her forehead against his chest. The heat, the pressure, felt a million times better than her desperate basement blow job. He put his hands on her narrow back, slowly, like touching a skittish animal, and began to rub her, comfort her by kneading with his palms when she didn’t shy away.
“Hey, hey,” he said. He had strong hands. He was good at this. He could give her this. “It’s gonna be okay. Tell me what you need.”
She gave a tight, hysterical laugh that made her more naked than he’d seen her in a decade.
“Sofia, tell me—”
She put her hands on his thighs and squeezed. “Por favor, stop saying that.”
He couldn’t say anything. Hot, hot hands on him made him lose the power of speech.
When she raised her head and looked at him, beautiful and steady and serious and regretful looking right into him, his whole body flushed hot. The feeling was rare. And remembered. This was exactly how he’d felt when he’d stuck his head into a wine tank and seen a half-naked girl cleaning it, her tiny body stretched out on her toes and her long multicolored hair beating against the back of her thighs.
“This is all pretend, verdad?” she asked, her voice so treasured and ephemeral he could have been dreaming it.
He gave a quick nod.
“It’s not fair of me to ask it of you. I shouldn’t—”
“Sofia,” he said, digging her name out of his chest, but it tried to stick low and gravelly in his throat as he fit his hands to her waist. His hands were a belt, a corset, the structure that would keep her upright if she wanted it. In the open sides of her overalls, only a thin cotton shirt separated her skin from his.
Her mouth trembled in reaction. She sank her white teeth into her bottom lip to hide it. He wanted to command her to stop it and claim her lip as his own.
“I don’t want to think, Aish,” she said, her strong fingers digging into his thighs. “That’s what I need.”
He promised he would listen to her. He promised he would trust her wishes.
This was all pretend.
“Yeah,” Aish said, low. “I get that.” He’d spent a year in his house; he knew all about not wanting to think. What if she’d been locked away with him? What happy, wild creatures they would have become.
He didn’t even realize he was pulling her toward him until she twisted her chin away.
“Don’t... I’m sorry but I can’t...don’t kiss me on the lips,” she gasped.
Her words punched him in the gut. He glared at her fine jawline as she denied him that wide, wet, pleasure-giving mouth. And he felt, couldn’t help but feel, her fingers make swirling, random, soft patterns on his thighs. She didn’t want to want him. But she did.
He leaned forward and bit her jaw. Nipped her to let her know he was irritated. Then he licked her earlobe and sucked it into his mouth, fondled it in that way that used to send her into full-body shivers.
It still did.
“More rules, Sofia?” Aish said into her ear. God, he loved her haircut. It made her ears, her neck, her pulse, all those places that made her boneless, so fucking accessible.
Then he lifted her chin with his thumb and made her look into his eyes. “I got a rule, too, Sofia.” Slow and deliberately, making her watch him do it, he unclasped one side of her overalls. “I’m not going to fuck you until we agree this is more than a one-time thing.”
She gave a tremor, just like she used to, at fuck falling out of his mouth.
He slipped his hand under her shirt, stroked up sleek skin, and groaned at what he found: soft, warm, naked roundness. Her breast was bare under her shirt. Her nipple, that sweet eager bit of her that he’d missed so much, was diamond hard.
“But don’t worry, pretty girl,” he said, stroking her nipple, watching that mouth fall open and those eyes go half-mast as he did it. “I remember all the ways to make you come.” He said come through gritted teeth and it made her gasp, made her roll her hips between his knees.
He scooted forward on the tailgate to press against her.
Years of fantasies and one-days and memories that at times haunted him so cruelly that he just wanted to forget them, and now she was here, against his body and under his hands, smelling like she’d been fashioned from the soil specifically to please him. This was nowhere close to paradise. But her nipple was hard between his fingers and her neck had goose bumps when he rubbed his nose against it, and she molded her hands—those delicate and mighty hands—against the muscles of his thighs. She had her rules but she needed him and she was giving herself to him and he would take her. Any way he could get her.
She didn’t want to think? He’d tease and touch and taste her until he’d cleared her mind of anything but him.
He lifted one side of her shirt so he could expose her breast to the warm air and his eager mouth. He had to see her again.
But he only caught a glimpse—caramelly skin, that sweet boob with its dark nipple, the bright lines of a tattoo at
