special to her.
When he slipped his arms around her waist, she leaned back into him without hesitation and laced her fingers with his, just under the swell of her breasts. His chest rose and fell against her back and he rested his chin on her head.
In that moment, Ben felt the way he’d felt in the bar, only in reverse. The solitary quiet he usually felt was less solitary, replaced instead with a gentle calm. He understood how alone Josey felt surrounded by her tribe, how hard it was to try and try and try and never be enough, how tired she was of doing it by herself. He understood it all and was happy to take some of the burden off her shoulders.
“Maybe that’s why I like you, too.” He whispered the words in her ear, but they seemed to echo over the bluff and into the grassland below.
She took a deep breath, her chest expanding against his arms. Together, they took a small step away from the edge. He couldn’t help it if his arms tightened around her, if his hands splayed out so he could feel more of her. He couldn’t help it if the way her hips moved against him made him think thoughts that had nothing to do with the sacredness of this place. He couldn’t help wanting her.
“Do you like me?” She pivoted in his arms and, palming his face, looked him in the eye. “Do you?”
What kind of question was that? He’d suffered baptism by fire in meeting her mother and her tribe—on multiple occasions—and she had to ask if he liked her? Women, he thought to himself as he let his lips do the answering for him.
He took his time tasting her. No mothers, no bandmates—nothing but the breeze was around to watch her run her fingers through his hair, or to see him pull her shirt out of the back of her jeans so that he could get his hands on her bare flesh. She responded by shimmying those hips against his.
He could do sex in the wide-open spaces. Hell, given the way she was sucking on his lip, he was pretty sure he could do sex anywhere. Certain parts of his anatomy jumped to agree. Anywhere, as long as it was with her.
He had her top half off when she pushed him away. “We should go.”
“Where?”
She closed her eyes and licked those lips. “Your place,” she said as she grabbed the edge of her shirt and pulled it back down. “Take me to your place.”
Seven
The motorcycle seemed to go faster and faster, until the world around her was nothing but a blur. They couldn’t be on the highway anymore. They had to be flying, faster and lower than she’d ever flown before. For a lost second, she felt like the little girl she’d once been, flying on the back of a horse headed to the place where she could be herself.
Except she wasn’t, not anymore. Now, she was a grown woman going home with a grown man. That’s what she wanted right now. To hell with what anyone else thought. She may not have the best idea of who she really was, but Ben was the only man to ever ask—and that’s who she wanted to be with.
She clung to Ben, every part of her front touching every part of his back. The motorcycle hummed between her legs, making it hard to breathe. Faster, she thought. Go faster.
Finally, the blur became streaked with light. Josey took that to mean they were near the city, but she couldn’t make out anything else.
She clung to Ben, trusting that he knew how to ride this machine. This whole thing was perfectly safe. There was absolutely no reason to be panicked about any of this. Least of all the fact that Ben was driving like a bat out of hell so he could take her to bed.
Despite the body-tingling vibrations shaking her to her core, she could feel his heart hammering away underneath his jacket. Yes, she was a little nervous about this. It had been far too long since her last lover. But the feel of her arms around his broad chest and the way his last kiss still burned on her lips was enough to push her past her worries.
To be wanted was a satisfaction in and of itself. Ben wanted her so bad that the world was a blur. He couldn’t wait, and truthfully, neither could she.
The world stopped spinning as