up on the crutches.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Jerking his head from his worrisome thoughts, he hurried ahead to unlatch the gate and usher her through.
“And the barn door.” She nodded.
He opened that too,
The barn was airless, musty, and filled with hay and sacks of grain. Dust motes swirled in the dim fight seeping in through the dusty windows.
Lacy sneezed.
“Bless you.”
She beamed at him and rested her crutches against the wall. She looked like a teenager, free of makeup, her hair off her face.
“Bed’s upstairs.” She pointed to the stairway at the back of the barn.
Bennett watched, totally mesmerized by her. He licked his lips. His pulse hammered. His stomach squeezed.
His body ignored all his mind’s earlier admonitions.
He wanted her and no amount of logic and common sense could talk him out of it.
Lacy’s insides wobbled like a sailboat in a hurricane. It was official. Bennett didn’t believe in the thunderbolt.
Question was, did she still believe? Or had she been a romantic fool all these years?
She was having a crisis of faith. First, she’d discovered the thunderbolt wasn’t quite as infallible as her great-grandmother had always claimed and now Bennett revealed the depressing story of his parents’ experience with their version of the thunderbolt. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him in any way.
She should leave the barn immediately. She’d shown him where his room was. Nothing good could come of staying here with him.
But she couldn’t make herself go.
Okay, what if the thunderbolt wasn’t real? It didn’t alter the fact that she was very attracted to Bennett. She wanted to make love to Bennett whether he was the one or not. Their affair didn’t have to end happily ever after.
Sex and love were two different things, and she was fully beginning to realize that. Perhaps what she felt for Bennett was nothing but runaway lust.
If that were true, a lusty roll in the hay would satisfy and they could get on with their separate lives.
For hours she had been unable to think of anything but kissing him again. In the car on the way here, beside him at the breakfast table, upstairs in her great-grandmother’s bedroom. Her lips ached for his mouth; her arms yearned to wrap around his neck; her nose itched to bury itself in his chest. She wanted to smell him, touch him, taste him, feel him.
She wasn’t pretending to be something she wasn’t any longer. Nor was she still tied to some bizarre familial myth. The time had come to free herself. To simply be Lacy, with no agenda or hidden motive other than to be with Bennett.
For once in her life, she felt no embarrassment over her sexuality, no shame at her inexperience.
In her pocket lay the condom CeeCee had given her the night before. She’d forgotten to take it out of her jumper, and now she was glad.
She wanted Bennett, and she didn’t care if he loved her or not. Sure, it would be nice if he returned her affections, but she was tired of believing in fairy tales. Tired of waiting for the perfect man. She wanted to know what it was like to be a woman. To have a man desire her, hold her, make love to her. If he walked away from her after they had sex, she would survive.
She angled him a come-hither glance.
And he came hither at blinding speed.
“Be careful.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “You could fall so easily balancing on one leg like that.”
His chest was pressed against her back, his hips flush with hers.
There was no mistaking his arousal.
Lacy turned her head. Her cheek brushed his chin. Their lips were so close.
Then indecision struck, and she began to tremble. Her belief in her plan flew away, and she was left with the stark reality of what she wanted and what was about to happen between them.
Bennett groaned, low and guttural.
The barn smelled earthy, rich, sexy. Thick mounds of coarse hay were strewn across the floor not two feet away. The thought of her bare flesh pressed against that rough hay made her tremble all the harder.
Tremble with starving, desperate need.
She’d waited so long for this.
It was warm in the enclosure. Beads of perspiration formed at the hollow of her throat. She saw that he was sweating, too, droplets glistening on his forehead.
She wanted to lick his skin and taste his salty flavor. She wanted to peel back that bathrobe and get her hands on what lay beneath. She wanted to skyrocket to heaven