Her heart swelled a little more at every irritated word that fell from his yummy lips. “Mmm,” she said when she could finally find her breath again, “I was wondering where Mr. Crankypants went.”

“I wanted to take my time with you tonight,” he grumbled against her skin as he ran little biting kisses over her shoulder until she was shuddering with need. “But you’re tempting me into taking you right here, right now.”

Maybe it shouldn’t have turned her on, the way he managed to be irritated with her even when they were making out, and yet it did. So, so much. Grayson had made her feel alive even when she believed she was dead to everything she’d once cared about.

She loved the idea of their being in his bed together, of all the wild and wicked ways they could love each other. But as his hands gripped her hips to pull her more tightly into him while he licked up the curve of her neck and sent thrill bumps running over every inch of her, wasn’t it somehow more fitting that they’d end up all over each other in the cab of his truck?

Their relationship had never followed the rules, not from the start, when she’d crashed into his fence post and he’d done everything to get her to leave but pick her up and toss her off his property. And even then, she’d seen something in his eyes that told her he wanted her, despite all the reasons he shouldn’t. Not only a desire for her that matched hers for him, but a soul-deep longing that she also understood. All too well, even when those longings shouldn’t make any sense.

Good thing she’d never cared much whether things made sense. No, she’d always simply followed her heart instead.

Amazingly, her heart had led her here. To Grayson’s farm.

And into his arms.

“I did promise to be the best darn farmhand you’ve ever had,” she reminded him in a husky voice that said as much about how badly she wanted him as any words she spoke. “I’ll bet you never had one who could do this.”

With one quick shimmy, she let the slim straps holding her dress up over her shoulders drop, the bodice covering her breasts falling down with it.

“Lori.”

She thought she’d be prepared for his reaction this time. After all, he’d seen her breasts in the cabin during the storm, had tongued and teased them until she’d catapulted all the way over the edge of pleasure. But the way his eyes darkened and desire completely took him over as he gazed at her naked flesh...

No, she’d never get used to being stared at with such overwhelming hunger.

“How am I doing so far?” She reached out to brush her fingertips over the square line of his jaw. When he didn’t answer, just kept staring at the rapidly tightening tips of her breasts until anticipation had her nearly wild with needing his hands and mouth on her, she teased, “Would you say this is fine?” She purposely used the not-quite-compliment he’d given her so many times before now.

“Nothing has ever been better than this, Lori. Not one goddamned thing.”

Grayson shifted lower on his seat and covered one aching nipple with his mouth, then the other, then both at the same time as he cupped them in his large, strong hands. She arched into his sweet caresses, and groaned aloud when he raked his teeth over her.

He was so big and hard and wonderfully male between her thighs and as she rocked into him, she was already so close that even with her dress and panties still on, her arousal had grown big enough that all it would take was one more tug of his mouth over her and she’d be—

“Oh God...”

Grayson was right there with her in an instant, one of his big hands sliding beneath her dress, up her bare leg and thigh, and inside her damp panties to help intensify the already shockingly sweet climax. With his thumb on her clitoris and two of his fingers slipping in and out of her, her initial orgasm gave way to another, even bigger one.

As she spiraled off and off and off, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him with every ounce of passion she possessed. He kissed her back just as desperately as he continued to stroke between her thighs, both of their mouths rough and hungry.

When her inner muscles had mostly stopped pulsing in the aftermath of her double climax, she realized just how out of breath she was, that she was panting as hard as if she’d just done all thirty-two of the Black Swan’s fouettés.

“My God, you overwhelm me,” he said, burying his face against her breastbone as he slowly slipped his hand from between her legs to pull her tightly to him again.

She felt him work to regain his control so that they would actually make it out of his truck and into his bed their first time. But Lori knew she couldn’t wait for that anymore, that this was exactly how things were supposed to happen, with both of them too overwhelmed to think straight.

Sex with Grayson in his truck was wild. Crazy.

And oh-so-perfect.

“You overwhelm me, too,” she said as she stroked his soft, dark hair. When he tilted his face up to meet her gaze, she whispered, “Overwhelm me some more,” then rocked her pelvis into the thick bulge behind the zipper of his dark jeans.

On a growl of pleasure, he pushed just as hard into her, both of their bodies young and strong and so hungry for each other that even the confines of his truck and their clothes could barely get in their way now.

“Please, Grayson,” she begged. “Take me. All of me.”

As wild as their night had been so far, at her breathless urging, Grayson finally let go of the hold he’d been keeping on his control, and the next thing she knew, he was moving them so that she was flat on her back on the bench seat and he was taking her pretty dress in his fists and ripping it in two. She gasped not from fear, but from excitement, as he reached for her thong next and shredded it to pieces with little more than one hard tug.

All week they’d been vying with each other to see who was stronger, tougher, who could hold out longer, but tonight they were equal partners in everything: passion, desire, need. She reached for his shirt and tore it open.

She couldn’t wait to get her hands on his bare chest, had actually daydreamed about it so many times that she couldn’t believe it hadn’t happened yet. And, oh, that first touch of hard, tanned muscles was so good.

“You’re the one who can’t possibly be real,” she said as he levered himself up over her so that she could run her hands over his gorgeously muscled shoulders and chest, and then the deep indentations of his abdominal muscles.

“You make me forget,” he said in a raw voice. “Everything but how much I want you.”

“You don’t have to remember tonight,” she told him, both of them panting from the force of their desire. “All you have to do is make love to me the way I’ve wanted you to from the first moment I saw you.”

He followed her plea with a searing kiss that made her head spin even more than it already was. And his hands, his mouth, were roaming over every last inch of her naked body. She couldn’t possibly keep up as he tasted her breasts in one moment, then nipped at her hip bone the next. His hands sometimes led, other times followed the devastating path of his lips and tongue and teeth over her overheated skin.

She’d already come twice, but when he curled his hand around her ankle and lifted her leg so that her foot was resting on the dashboard, then stared down at her with the hottest, hungriest expression she’d ever seen, she nearly climaxed again without any further contact at all.

“Swear to God,” he said as he reached out to stroke the slick flesh between her legs, “I’ve never seen anything prettier than you in all my life.” He moved down from the seat to kneel on the floor of the truck before adding, “And I’ll bet you taste even better.”

She gasped in pleasure when his tongue found her. He’d splayed his hands on her inner thighs to open her up even further to him, and when she looked down and saw his tanned fingers on her pale skin, his tongue moving over her, and his eyes lifted to her face so that he could watch her reaction, she tumbled abruptly into yet another sinfully perfect climax.

Slowly, he kissed his way up her body as he climbed back over her. “You were just as sweet as I thought you’d be,” he said right before he covered her mouth with his.

She was working on his belt buckle when he grabbed her wrists. “I need you,” she pleaded as she fought to break free of his hold. “I can’t wait another second to have you.”

“I don’t have any protection. We have to go back to my house.” He was already moving away from her to let her up as he said it, and she barely bit back a groan of frustration.

So close. She’d been so close to finally having him, and now because neither of them had thought to bring a condom to the barn dance, she was stuck having to shift back into her seat and put on the long-sleeved shirt he handed her over her naked body for a far-too-long fifteen-minute drive home.

Lori knew she should be thankful that he’d remained lucid enough to stop before they had unprotected sex. Especially after what had happened to Sophie on the night she’d had a one-night stand and become pregnant despite using a condom.

But right now, with need roiling around inside her, Lori didn’t feel grateful at all.

On the contrary, what she felt was a clawing need to claim—and be claimed by—Grayson, once and for all.

Only, once she finally got his shirt on and was sitting in her seat, instead of starting the engine and burning rubber so that they could continue where they’d left off, he just sat there and glared at her. Three back-to-back orgasms with no big finale in sight made her ornery as she glared back.

“What’s your problem now?”

“I’m waiting for you to put your goddamned seatbelt on.”

She started at his tone, and the hardness of his gaze that had been so full of hunger just seconds before, and was opening her mouth on a sarcastic retort when she remembered what she couldn’t believe she’d almost forgotten: he’d lost his wife in a car crash. No wonder he was so adamant about her putting her seatbelt on, even in the wake of what they’d just been doing with one another.

With trembling hands, she snapped her seatbelt into place, at which point Grayson pushed the gas pedal down hard enough that gravel sprayed out from his tires.

* * *

Minutes felt more like hours as Grayson forced himself to take the dark farm roads just barely above the speed limit. And then—finally!—he was pulling into his drive.

Lori was about to jump out onto the gravel when he caught her in his arms. “You left your shoes at the dance.”

“You had no problem with me walking around in bare feet on the gravel before,” she reminded him.

He nuzzled her cheek and breathed in her sweet, wild, oh-so-feminine scent. “That was before I liked you.” Grayson was stepping on his porch and was about to kiss her again when he realized she was pushing at his chest.

“I think all the excitement has made my ears go wonky,” she declared. “What did you just say?”

God, he could hardly think at all with her soft and warm in his arms, his long-sleeved shirt falling open over her beautiful breasts. He kicked his front door open and tried to remember, but all he could come up with was, “I don’t want you tearing up your feet on the gravel.”

“No,” she said, “after that.”

He’d had so many fantasies of Lori naked and begging for him to take her here in his bedroom, that as he carried her into it, her question was instantly forgotten. He laid her down on the covers, pulled the shirt he’d given her to wear in the truck all the way open, and slid it from her body.

Sweet Lord, he wanted to start all over from the beginning, wanted to make her come another three times with his hands, his mouth.

Just as he was lowering his mouth to her breasts, she said, “Did you even mean it?”

Reluctantly moving his mouth away from her chest, he cupped her breasts in his hands and teased the nipples with his thumb and forefinger instead until they were sharply aroused points. “Did I mean what?”