If It's Only Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 6)

I glance at the pole barn over my shoulder and smile. “Come on.” I tug him toward the barn, and he follows.

I enter the security code on the door and push inside. It’s darker in here, the only light from the high windows on the garage doors, but there’s enough to see and it’s still nice and cool, unlike in the summer, when the metal walls turn it into an oven.

I shut the door and smile up at him. “When I was a teenager, you and I were alone in here once. You were in a pair of swim trunks, shirtless, and I was looking for the big float for the lake.”

“I remember. You were wearing a black swimsuit and . . .” He bites a knuckle dramatically, and I laugh. “Carter was pissed at me that day.”

I hoist myself up on the counter in the workshop at the back of the barn. “I got sick of looking and sat here,” I say. “I was so self-conscious about my body, but I thought . . .” I bite my bottom lip. Even more than a dozen years later and with a world more self-confidence, it’s hard to make myself say the words. “I thought you were looking at me.”

He prowls forward. Slowly. Too slowly. “I was.”

“I think I believe that now, but I didn’t then. I couldn’t have. So I did what I always did when I needed to cheer myself up. I told myself a story.”

Easton stops two feet away and tilts his head to the side. “What kind of story?”

“I imagined I was the kind of girl you’d look at—”

“Not a stretch, since you were.”

“And that you desperately wanted to kiss me.”

“I did.”

“I told myself you were going to stop tinkering with Jake’s old bike and notice me sitting here.”

His nostrils flare. “I noticed.”

“Maybe if we’d been friends then—like we are now—I would’ve had the courage to tell you I wanted you to kiss me.”

“Maybe if we were friends, I would have had the balls to ask.” He steps closer, and even sitting on the counter, I have to look up to see his face. He nudges my thighs apart and takes another step to stand between them. He strokes a whisper-soft path up my thigh, pushing my dress aside on the way. “Do you want me to kiss you, Shay?”

“We are friends, right?” I whisper. “I like being your friend. Do you like it?”

He buries his face in my neck, and I gasp at the feel of his tongue flicking the sensitive skin behind my ear. “I like this.” He sucks my earlobe between his teeth. “And this.”

I whimper. “Yes, me too.” I turn my head, searching for his mouth, and he kisses me hard. His hands are in my hair, and our tongues collide. Desperate. Searching.

“As your friend,” he says, his voice all low and gravelly when he breaks the kiss, “I couldn’t help but notice the way you were looking at me tonight.”

“How did I look?”

“Like being friends might not be enough for you. Like you were thinking about me getting you off on your couch. Like you were thinking that maybe next time, you want more from me.”

My breath catches as his knuckles graze the damp cotton between my thighs. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” I confess, fighting the urge to rock into him.

“Me neither.” He dips his head to the swell of my breast above the neckline of my dress, opens his mouth, and bites down gently.

My breath shudders out of me. “I want to touch you.”

He groans against my breast, and I wiggle away from him and hop off the counter. He turns, watching me, and I drop to my knees, working at his buckle. “Christ,” he whispers. But he doesn’t stop me, and the desperation in his eyes is enough to send a shock of pleasure right through my core.

I free him from his jeans and nearly gasp at the feel of him in my hand—hard and silken against my palm. Hard for me.

He rocks into my fist, groaning. “Shay. Fuck, that’s good.”

I lean forward and press my mouth to the tip of his cock. The way he jerks under my lips sends a rush of power through me so potent I feel like I could do anything. I run my tongue along the underside then grip him at the base of his shaft before I take him into my mouth.

Maybe this is reckless, but we’ve already crossed lines, and right now, there’s nothing I want more than to make him come.

He threads his fingers through my hair, not so much to guide me but as if he’s trying to hold me, to keep more contact between us. I work my mouth over him, pulling him deep for a few strokes before releasing him completely and licking his tip with my tongue.