Reece (Stud Ranch 4)

“I’m obsessed with your jaw,” I said. “Every time I look at you, all I want to do is this.” I ran my thumb back and forth across the bristles and then pressed harder, feeling the shape of the firm bones underneath.

He swallowed hard, and I watched in abject fascination as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Maybe I should get you back inside, Captain.”

I licked my lips. “Or maybe we should go into the stables and make out.”

He opened his mouth like he was gonna say something else and I moved in front of him, reaching up with both hands to caress his jaw with both hands.

His face was dark, shadowed, but I imagined mine was clear in the moonlight as he looked down at me.

“Don’t you want to kiss me?” I asked, and I couldn’t help the vulnerability in the question.

He was silent and it hit me that, oh my God, what if I was making a fool out of myself? Yes, we’d slept together once, but he probably did that kind of thing all the time. It didn’t mean he wanted a repeat performance, and certainly not with some high, sloppy chick—

“Are you fucking kidding?” He didn’t say anything else. He just leaned down and kissed me.

Not hard. Not demanding.

Just perfect. Eager. Like it was something he’d been waiting to do again.

His lips, so wide and thick, covered mine and the wild roar of wanting roared to life inside me. Foreign, but also familiar. Like it was something my body instinctually knew even though I’d never experienced it before meeting Reece’s mouth.

He pulled away, then looked around us. I could see his face looked a little dazed as he blinked. “We shouldn’t be doing this out here in the open.”

I giggled. “Why not? Who’s going to catch us?”

He pulled me against his body and I felt his desire for me. He leaned down. “Because I imagine public indecency is still frowned upon even if you’re out in the sticks.”

Oh. Oh. He wanted to have sex with me again.

Yes. Yes, I wanted that, too.

“So let’s go to the stables,” I said at the same time he said, “So I should probably get you back inside, Cinderella.”

His eyes went wide. “The stables?”

I felt self-conscious again. “Unless you don’t want to.” But the thought of going back in the house… compared to how good it felt to be out here with him. It was a no-brainer which one I wanted.

He coughed. “Are you kidding? I just… It’s your first time with weed.”

I shrugged and nodded. I decided that being self-conscious was bullshit.

I felt amazing, light and tingly and electric, but not completely out of control. I didn’t want to go back to my bedroom. No, no, I did not want to go back there with the ghosts.

Penelope Chambers was my ghost and I wanted to exorcise her. I wanted her gone forever. I wanted this new life. I wanted this feeling, right here. I wanted to reach out and touch Reece’s face again. I wanted him to touch my body. I wanted to touch my body.

What if an exorcism didn’t have to be about hell and damnation, but with, like, baptisms of pleasure instead? Over and over, pleasure, until I was made new. Reincarnating me into my own body but with a new life. That was the kind of rebirth I wanted.

I wanted no boundaries, no one telling me don’t touch, don’t taste, not for you. No more constraints.

So to Reece, I said, “Well, I’m going to the stable. To touch myself. You can come if you want.”

And then I pulled away from him and walked towards the stables, swaying my hips as I went.

I did smile when I heard footsteps behind me though.

I felt like a teenager as I tried to walk steadily across the yard, past the barn, to the stable. The teenager I should have been, without a mother weighing my food and making me journal my caloric intake. The college kid I should have been, high on weed and seducing the boy she wanted, the boy she chose. Making reckless but exhilarating choices that were all mine.

I was breathless by the time I got to the stable. I didn’t turn around once, but I could tell that Reece was still following by the sound of his feet on the dry grass behind me.

The work they’d done so far on restoring the stable was impressive. It was dry and warmer inside than outside. The floor was swept clean, as were the few stalls that had been repaired.

It smelled like wood and hay and ranch, but in a good way.

I spun and turned to Reece.

“What if we played pretend?” I asked impetuously.

He frowned, stopped at the doorway. “How do you mean?”

“Like the first night when I went to your cabin. We were strangers, and think how sexy that was. What if we pretended to be strangers again? Just a game of pretend. In the daytime, everything goes on like normal. But maybe for just one night…” I took a step towards him, and ran a hand down his shirt, “you could pretend to be my teacher.”