Page 50 of Keepsake
Zach stepped into my personal space so quickly I didn’t have any time to react. My backside collided with barn wood at the same moment his hand cupped my cheek. In the nanosecond before he kissed me, I took a fast breath and inhaled the scent of hay and clean flannel. Then his hungry mouth took mine.
Oh.
Oh, wow.
My senses were overwhelmed with all things Zach—his sunshine scent and the rough pad of his thumb on my cheek. And his taste, which was like beer and hunger. His kiss was impatient with me. His lips caressed mine, demanding to be tasted. My shock abated all at once, and I sagged against the wall, tilting my face toward his, looking for more.
And he provided. As his big hands encircled my waist, he touched my lip with his tongue. I opened for him faster than a hungry baby bird. The first taste of his hunger was magic, setting off an electrical charge throughout my body.
I made a funny little noise of surprise as every one of my dormant nerve endings woke up at once and saluted him. My hands found their way onto his chest, my fingers gripping his flannel shirt. His tongue slid against mine. And when he made a low sound of approval, I felt it everywhere.
“Zach?” someone called. The voice was Griff’s.
We broke apart on a gasp, our gazes locking.
“Everything okay?” Griff called out from the opposite end of the darkened barn.
After a beat, Zach yelled “Fine!” in a voice too rough to sound like his own.
“Was it the timer again?”
Zach opened his mouth and then closed it again. He took a half step back from me. I would have had to be blind to miss how conflicted he was in that moment. And while there was no earthly reason why Griff needed to discuss the cows’ nightlights at midnight on a Friday, I didn’t want to be the reason he blew off his boss.
So I made a quick decision and removed myself from the situation. Slipping out from the space between Zach and the barn door, I headed across the moonlit lawn alone. I felt Zach’s eyes on me, but I hurried on my way.
12
Zach
As one ofthe Shipleys might say,holy shit.
I stumbled through a conversation about barn lighting with Griff before finally making my excuses and heading back to the bunkhouse.
Lark’s door was closed, with no strip of light beneath it. But that was for the best. I needed a little time for my head to clear, so I could figure out what the hell had happened tonight.
Kissing Lark was not something I’d ever meant to do. Griff had said very clearly thatthe girl is off limits. But, hey—she started it. The kiss at the bar had taken both of us by surprise. The way her hands gripped me as the kiss went on? That was not my imagination. Neither was the flush on her face afterward.
She felt it. But still—that didn’t justify my audacity. I could have left it alone.
Stewing over it, I brushed my teeth on autopilot and got into bed. Griff came in, joking with Kieran. They wondered where Kyle might be staying tonight.
“I hope that girl was not a serial killer,” Kieran mused.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if he read the situation wrong?” Griff asked. “Maybe she only wanted to try to convert him to another religion.”
“Or sell him a time-share property in Boca.”
The two of them broke up laughing.
I smiled to myself as the room went dark. This was typical bunkhouse behavior, juiced up with Friday night’s usual combination of beer and sexual frustration. This was my version of home. It would look strange to someone else, but it was normal to me.
As I began to get drowsy, I said a silent prayer in the hopes that Lark would stay asleep tonight. Getting into her bed right now would be a horrible idea. If she touched me, I’d probably burst into flames.
Griff began to snore first, and it wasn’t long until I followed him.
On SaturdayI woke up in my own bed. Shutting off my watch alarm, I hauled myself into a vertical position, got dressed and went out to the barn where Dylan and I began the milking in sleepy silence.
It was Kieran’s day to sleep in, but twenty minutes into morning chores he showed up anyway. “What are you doing here?” I asked him as I hooked up a Jersey named Becky to the milking machine.
