console got in the way. She hit it with the heel of her hand and made a little mew of frustration.
“Does this thing come out?”
“No.” He opened the door. “But we do.”
***
Before Sarah had time to think, Lane was out of the truck and around it, opening her door. She tumbled into his arms and clung to his neck, her dress hanging off her shoulders, her bare breasts brushing his chest. He lifted her like she weighed nothing and strode around to the back of the truck.
The bumper was dented, all right. The tree had caved in the tailgate and he had to set her down to jerk it open. It fell with a clang that resounded through the night and made the crickets hush their chirping.
She shivered.
“You cold? Hold on.”
Lane set her on the tailgate and ducked into the cab. A second later he tossed her the silky tasseled wrap she’d carried along with her purse. She pulled it around her breasts and held it at her throat, dangling her legs over the tailgate and looking up at the tree branches that ascended like a spiraling ladder up the rough trunk. A few stars peeped through the filigree of needles, and the moon perched high above as if impaled on the topmost spike.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered to herself. It might be July, but she was giving herself one heck of a present. She pushed back all the cautions poking at the back of her mind—someone might catch you, he’s your boss’s brother, you shouldn’t do this, it’s not professional—and she laughed, because all those things mattered so little compared to the way Lane was looking at her.
“Something funny?” He climbed up beside her.
She smiled. “You.”
“That’s just what a man wants to hear.”
He scrambled up to his hands and knees. He’d brought a blanket from the truck cab and he draped it carefully over a couple bales of hay at the front of the pickup bed. One bale had broken open and spilled straw in a smooth cascade, and the blanket turned it into a sloping chaise lounge. Lane sat back against the intact bale, and propped one arm behind his head. His shirt was open to the last button and the flat plain of his chest glowed in the moonlight. Sarah thought he looked like a shot from a cowboy calendar. Mr. July.
She scurried up beside him and he crooked the other arm around her, lazily stroking the wrap she’d pulled over her breasts. She wasn’t sure where her bra had gone, but the feel of his hand sliding over her taut nipples with nothing but the thin fabric between them raised goose bumps on her chest and arms. He pinched a bit of fabric between his fingertips and she let out a shuddering breath and arched her back.
“You like that?”
“I’d like it better without the shawl,” she whispered.
“You sure?” His hand paused. “We don’t have to do this. It’s kind of in the open. We could…”
“Don’t.” She pulled his hand back to her breast. “Please don’t. I want this. I want the moonlight. I want you, Lane. Just one more time.”
He pulled the fabric gently away from her body, first one side, then the other. “One more time? Are you thinking this is a two-night stand, Sarah Landon?”
She sat up and shrugged off the shirt. “Yes.”
Then, to his surprise, she shimmied out of her dress so fast he barely had time to enjoy the show before she was lying beside him again, clad in nothing but a pair of black bikini panties.
She splayed her hand over his chest. “I work for your brother. I work for your father, Lane. In a way I work for you, except we’re not on the same side. Remember?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t take sides. And I don’t want to talk about work right now. Besides, you know I don’t care about the company.”
“I think you do,” she said. “You told me last night I messed up your life.”
He knelt beside her and ran a gentle finger across the top edge of her panties, stroking her belly from one hip to the other, then skimming back again. Her skin quivered under his touch. He reached the side and slipped his finger under the waistband and tugged it down, then stroked from one side to the other until he’d uncovered her and she kicked the panties away.
“I have a feeling you’re going to make up for messing up my life,” he said. “But it