“No way.” I grab his hand and squeeze and end up kissing his knuckles. “Gotta protect my prince charming.”
I get the small, sweet smile. “Are you my princess?”
“Yes.”
The ride home takes about an hour, and by the time we reach the top of my driveway, all the endorphins swimming through my brain have made me giddy.
“I feel great!”
Barrett takes his helmet off and leans his head back. His chest swells with a deep, half-panted breath. “Me, too.”
Damn… His curls are dark and pasted to his perfectly-shaped head. His temple and throat are damp with sweat. His beard, which he trimmed to just scruff last night, looks so freaking sexy; I just want to lick him.
I take my helmet off, and his eyes roll up and down me. He takes my bike’s handle. “Why don’t you go inside? Wait for me on the coffee table?”
My neck flushes.
“No?” His eyebrows lift.
“How do you always know?”
“Know what?” He smirks.
“When I want it.”
“Because,” he says darkly. His hand slaps my backside. “I do, too.”
I scamper in and wait for him, bent over the coffee table, even though I feel insane. He uses a secret agent trick to come inside without making a sound, so the first thing I know of him is his hands pulling my pants down, his fingers delving into my slick pussy.
He’s rougher than usual; he seems hungrier. Like he needs it bad. It’s so, so hot, I come before he has his dick inside me. Barrett flips me over on my back, my legs hanging off the table, bent at the knees. He spreads me with his fingers, rubs his tip around my slickness, and then pushes in.
The table is just the right height so he’s neither standing nor fully crouching, more like leaning over and driving into me. He holds my arms and nibbles at my breasts. After we’re finished, we get in the bath and Barrett rubs my shoulders till I think I might just slip into the soapy water.
The next few days are much the same. We bike downtown and get coffee or hot chocolate, grab some lunch, drop by the studio, to which Mallorie gave Bear a key, and make plans for what we’ll do with the interior if the owner accepts Bear’s offer.
Finally, a few nights before Thanksgiving, Mallorie calls Bear and tells him she heard from the owner, who accepted his offer.
We celebrate with a long walk through the dark woods, making a pit stop to have sex in the stock shed before winding up in the attic library looking at the stars. I fall asleep on Barrett’s chest, and when he wakes us both up sometime later murmuring curse words, he just blinks at me a few times and says he’s okay.
Most of our stuff is still at my house, so we walk there hand in hand. When we get inside, he sits down on the couch, his legs slightly spread, his head leaned back against the couch’s spine.
His hands are lightly fisted on his thighs.
“You want some water…or hot chocolate?”
When he doesn’t answer me—I see him swallow—I sit down beside him. I take his hand and trail my fingertip over his knuckles. They’re marked with lots of little scars that make me wonder what his life was like before he retired.
“I love your hands.”
I bring the left one up and kiss the thick callous on his palm between his thumb and index finger.
“Why’d you do that?” he rasps, his eyes cracking open.
I shut my eyes, letting my lips trail over the spot. “It’s from shooting, isn’t it?”
He tries to pull his hand away. I press it over my mouth, look at him over his fingertips.
“I thought it could use some TLC, that’s all. I didn’t mean to upset you.”