“We should get you out of those clothes,” she suggested.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
In silence, she undressed him, careful to lay his cover atop the strict folds of his shirt. And when the hay bale she had used as a folding surface left fragments of hay at the base of the uniform, she brushed it clean an inordinate number of times.
Wes reached for her hand to stop it. “It’s seen worse.”
She had wanted to be respectful. Now she was scared about what came next. Despite him still wearing pants, the need to reset consumed her. Olive smiled at him and fled.
11
The entirety of the distance back to his side of the barn, to the box that had triggered all of this, to return his clothes to where Olive found them and return his past to the past, was paved with noble intentions. Arousal baked her insides like clay fired in a kiln. She wanted him more than anything she had ever wanted, but this moment, as if the entire universe were in front of her, ripe for cultivating memories to hold onto in the dark times, made her feel out-of-body.
Happiness didn’t last. For the sake of her creative space, her art, the euphoria of making love to Wes couldn’t last. But just because she didn’t trust it didn’t mean she should deny herself. Light existed because darkness permitted it. Someday, that fire in the distance of her life’s canvas would be him.
Livie turned to tell him as much, but he was already there. When he slid the locking board in place on the barn door and shook out two saddle blankets inside the truck bed, the moment became real, intentioned, entirely present. He returned to her and tugged her into the fold of his arms.
“I can see you carving entire worlds, in here.” His lips caressed her temple. “I want to be part of them, but not if you’re not ready.”
Even if she couldn’t be honest about the sculpture, she could be honest about this. “I don’t want to be part of your past that you regret.”
“My only regret is that it took me this long to get here.”
He kissed her. This time his lips were diligent, hyper-focused, exact. She attributed it to him donning the uniform again, putting him in the take-charge headspace that had kept him and his men alive all those years. Just before she folded her defenses and packed them away as she had his uniform, she said, “I don’t have protection.”
Wes smiled against her mouth. He broke free long enough to fetch an old saddlebag hanging on a nail and returned to her, two foil packages in hand.
“You’re in a barn on a ranch where three boys grew into men. Let me amend that—where Chase Meier grew into a man worthy of his name. He’s single-handedly given the elderly Christian ladies in Close Call enough material to pray for his soul for years to come.”
“He is a charmer, that one.”
“What does that make me?” asked Wes.
The hero.
Saying it gave too much away, so she replaced words with actions and led him by the hand to the back bumper of the truck.
With the tailgate propped up against the barn wall, Wes sat on the bed’s clean edge. Tires replaced the hay bales that had held up the frame when she first entered the barn. The vehicle settled from the weight of his six-foot-tall stature. In the space between his thighs, she became his willing captive.
He stripped off his undershirt and pitched it over his shoulder. Naked to the waist, he was the most extreme model with whom she had ever entered this fertile, inspirational space. Stacked muscles told the story of his life—protector, fighter, laborer. Rigid, yet unbelievably soft. Across the defined crests and valleys of his shoulders, taut, sun-kissed skin stretched and moved as he reached for her hair. He twisted it, as he must have a thousand lassos in his time, for better grip, but with a gentleness that burned low in her belly. He placed the collected strands gently behind one shoulder then turned his gaze to everything her hair had concealed.
Livie had sculpted plenty of breasts in her time as an artist. She had a healthy appreciation for their varying and absolute perfection—stirring impressions of age or maternity or eroticism—sometimes all at once. The way Wes devoured hers with his eyes made her feel the epitome of desired. She peeled the camisole from her body and tossed it behind him. The lacy garment landed on the flared rear fender.
“Best rebuild to the truck yet,” he growled low, desire squeezing his vocal chords.
From then on, Livie made it her mission to do her part to restore the truck—her way. Not to leave it unbalanced—symmetry was, after all, so much a part of what she did—she reached behind her, unclasped her bra, and tossed it over the truck’s other fender.
Wes hissed his arousal. His gaze flared with want. He pressed against his awakening erection with the side of his hand, adjusted himself, taming the powerful bulk.
For now.
She anticipated the impressive study in human anatomy that awaited her. Second lie of the night: the mere sight of a penis usually brought her to orgasm. All those trips to museums weren’t just for study. She’d often return to her apartment, dripping wet, slip into a bath, and go for two.
Not wanting to rush things, Livie decided she should be the first to unclothe.
She hiked her foot up to rest against the truck bed between his thighs. The moment her boot heel landed in proximity to his cock, the already-expanded material jerked greedily.
He set about untying the black and white ribbons on both boots and removing her socks, which she promptly decided should be looped around the pipe-shaped back bumper.