Page 58 of Keepsake
She’d had a rough couple of weeks, if I was honest. After her incident at the farmers’ market in Norwich, I’d spent quite a few nights in her bed, and not for a fun reason. She was still afraid, damn it. And the guy who soothes you when you scream should never roll over and ask for a kiss. It just wasn’t right.
So even though I woke up every morning burning up with need, I never gave in to the temptation to taste her again.
“Well, it’s been fun losing to you guys,” Dylan said, picking up his coffee mug. “But after that drubbing I’m going to do some homework.” He left the room to another clap of thunder.
May’s nose was pressed against the glass, where rain was coming down in sheets. “This weather is crazy. I wonder where Griff is?” she asked.
The answer came a couple of minutes later when the kitchen door banged open and Griff yelled for his brother. “Dyl! I need another set of hands! We got a tree down.”
“I’ll help,” I said, jogging toward the door, my leisurely Sunday forgotten. I grabbed a raincoat off a hook—a coat that had belonged to Griffin’s father. There was no room for sentiment when it came to gear on a farm. A rain jacket couldn’t be sacred. It wasn’t a keepsake. Life went on.
“Thanks, man,” Griff grunted.
“Where’s the downed tree?”
“Laying across the chicken fence. Just a birch, though.”
After shoving my feet into Dylan’s rain boots, I ran outside with Griff. It only took us fifteen minutes or so to remove the blown-down tree and set the chickens’ portable electric fence to rights.
“Thanks, again,” Griff said when we were done.
“Don’t mention it.” He went back to the cider house alone. Before I came inside, I lifted the hinged sides of the chicken tractor and felt around for eggs, collecting a half dozen in the folds of my coat, and saving Dylan a trip out in the rain later.
When I carefully opened the door and stepped inside, mindful of the eggs cradled in one arm, Lark was alone in the kitchen.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said, looking up at me with disbelief. “Looks like you went for a swim in those clothes.”
“I think I did. Could you…”
She had already crossed the room to me, and when she saw what I was carrying she put down her mug and began gently moving the eggs onto the kitchen counter. “Nice haul.”
“Yeah. I learned the hard way never to put them in my pockets.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. Big mistake.” I unbuttoned the rain coat, and Lark pushed the wet thing off my shoulders. Her hands grazed my body, and my libido sat up and begged. Then she grabbed a dry dish towel out of the drawer and raised it to my hairline, catching the drips of water there.
We were so close together that everything went quiet inside me.
“You’re always the first one to jump when Griffin needs a hand,” Lark said quietly.
“I don’t mind.”
With one smooth thumb she brushed water off my cheekbone. The sweep of her skin against mine was at once familiar and electrifying. Whenever she touched me, I felt as if I’d loved her my whole life.
“You’redripping,” she chided me.
I must have been staring, because now her big brown eyes were locked on mine. There were only a few inches between us, and they could have been easily vanquished. But I held my ground, unmoving even as a new rivulet of water dripped down my cheek.
It was Lark who broke our stare-down. And she did it by leaning forward, pressing her lips to my jaw, absorbing the water droplets with a soft kiss. “Hmm,” she breathed, and her exhalation brought goosebumps to my neck. She raised her head a centimeter and kissed my damp skin again.
My body did its best impression of a brush pile catching fire.Whoosh. Giving in to the urge I’d been fighting every minute of the day and night, I reached for her beautiful face with both hands.
My heart was pounding, but I didn’t attack her mouth like I’d done in the barn. This time I took her tenderly. My lips grazed hers. But even that first contact made my head spin. The softness of her skin and her feminine scent overwhelmed me. My mouth closed over hers, her hands finding my chest.
Yes, my body chanted.More.
I deepened the kiss, sliding a hand to the back of her neck, pulling her into my arms. Maybe I’d spent the first twenty-three years of my life without touching anyone, but Lark had changed me. Icravedthe contact. Her mouth softened under mine, and she made an achy little sound that went right to my dick.
