Last Second Chance

Chapter Fourteen

This woman was going to drive him straight from rehab into the fucking nut house. She made him insane. Certifiably.

Her deliciously intoxicating scent combined with how much of her body he could see through her sopping-wet clothing was a torture that had begun to break him.

Add the whimpered pleas and her finally submitting to her attraction to him? It was a recipe for destruction—his and hers. But instead of matching monogrammed towels, they might as well have gotten it branded on their asses.

“I-I think I already belong to you. That first day, when you ran into me, something…something happened to me.”

Her words annihilated the last of his resolve.

“What happened to you, cowgirl? Tell me. I want to hear it.”

The naked vulnerability she was exuding made his dick even harder than her body against him. He released her chin so that she could look away if she needed to. He half hoped she would. But she didn’t.

“I try to avoid you because I can’t understand the way you make me feel. My mind wants to wrap itself around you, to know you, every part of you. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the terrifying. I want it all.”

Her unadulterated honesty enticed him to share a truth of his own. “I dream of you. I don’t know how or why. But I do. Night after night. It’s the first time my nights haven’t been plagued with nightmares.”

“What do you dream, Van? Tell me. I want to hear it,” she whispered his words back to him softly. When she wrapped her arms around his waist, he didn’t feel ensnared like he did with most women. He didn’t feel trapped. He felt needed. In a way he hadn’t felt since he’d lost Val.

He studied her smooth skin, her perfectly plump and heart-shaped lips, the flecks of gold in her green eyes. “Some of it’s nice, stuff you’d want to hear. Holding you, waking up with you.”

“And the rest?” she prompted.

“The rest is more than you can handle, cowgirl.”

Something brave and dangerous flashed and glinted in her exotic-jewel-colored eyes. “You might be surprised what I can handle.”

Words wouldn’t do it. Verbal warnings were getting him nowhere. So he grabbed her underneath her thighs and lifted. The audible gasp she let out only fueled his determination to show her what she refused to hear. Slamming her against the side of the barn, he thrust the rock-hard ridge of his erection against her.

“This what you want, cowgirl? Make damn sure, because I’m no quitter. Once we pass that point of no return, I don’t care if you beg, plead, or outright cry. There’s no safe word, no taking it back, and no stopping.”

Her lips pressed together, drawing his attention to her mouth once again. “I’ve spent so long avoiding feeling things—pain, pleasure, anything—that sometimes I’m afraid I might be completely…empty inside.” Her confession tore him apart, broke through every barrier he’d built.

“Oh, baby. No. You’re not—”

“You make me feel, Van. You’re the first one to ever make me feel. So if you think I can’t handle it, you’re wrong. What you do to me… The way you make me feel…” She stared intently at him for several seconds. “The only thing I’m going to beg or plead for is more.”

Jesus Christ. He sucked in a ragged breath to steady himself.

“I can’t control myself with you,” he admitted quietly. “Not that self-control has ever been my greatest skill, but with you, I have none.”

“I am practically made of self-control. I have enough for both of us.”

With that, she leaned forward and kissed him—softly at first, a gentle brush of her lips against his. Then harder. Hungrier. Pulling and sucking him into her mouth. He felt as if she were devouring him, but he was more than happy to let her.

Due to their equestrian audience, losing himself completely in her was not an option at the moment. Van took control of their kiss, deepening it, lashing his tongue inside her and then dragging it slowly across her lips. He kissed her in the way that he planned to fuck her, deep and deliberate and with a worshipful intensity so fierce he nearly dropped to his knees.

Stella was responsive, so damn responsive it was painful. Her sweet flavor intensified as she opened for him again and again. When she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and barely grazed her teeth against it, he decided he’d give up oxygen, drugs, music, alcohol—all of it—if he could just have this.

“Dear God, you are going to kill me,” he groaned when she began grinding her hips against his. He still held her to his waist, so the seam of her damp shorts stroked roughly against his cock as it strained against his jeans.

“Never,” she mumbled against his lips.

He pulled back, letting out a dark chuckle at the obvious displeasure on her face. His eyes drifted to her full breasts heaving between them. He wanted nothing more than to sink himself into her luscious heat while sucking those perfect swells into his mouth, but damned if he was doing it in a barn with a bunch of horses watching. The old him would’ve just fucked her hard and fast, not caring who saw or if she got hers or not. But something about this woman had him striving to be better. She deserved better. And he had intricate plans for how he was going to take her, and he’d need much more privacy for what he had in store for Stella Jo Chandler.

“How’s that self-control working for you right now, cowgirl?” He smirked at her. “Still got enough for both of us?”

He lowered her gently to the ground as she continued to pout while straightening her clothes. She didn’t meet his gaze as he watched her try and reclaim some sense of dignity. Or maybe her equilibrium. He had no fucking clue where his had gotten off to.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with me, Mr. Ransom, but I don’t much care for it,” she huffed out.

Van couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. “Oh yeah? Baby, I can promise you, you will enjoy the fuck out of any and all games we ever play.”

Her brows dipped downward but her mouth quirked up, exposing her interest.

“Glare all you want. How wet are you for me right now, Stella Jo?”

Lines appeared in her forehead as she crinkled her nose at him. “Keep playing hot and cold with me and you’ll never find out.”

Van reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Baby, I am always hot for you. I’ve been burning the fuck up since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

Her voice was whisper-soft when she spoke. “We’re past the point of denying ourselves, Van. I think you know that.”

He nodded. “I know.”

He watched as she swallowed hard and her bright eyes round with vulnerability met his. “If we do this and we get caught, I’ll lose my job. But now, after…after that, if we don’t… If you never so much as touch me again, I’m afraid I’ll lose my mind.”

He fought off an idiotic grin. Mother of God. This woman did the strangest things to him. His reactions to her had become uncontrollable and unpredictable.

“That makes me ridiculously happy to hear from your sweet mouth.” He winked at her, but his mind was working overtime. “Listen, after thirty days I get my own private residential suite behind the—”

She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he placed his fingers over her lips. He didn’t know much about love—as in what it would be like to be in love with another human being—but he was pretty sure he was already in love with her mouth. He’d already spent hours upon hours imagining it on his, on his skin, on his cock.

“—main building. And since I’m helping you out down here, you stopping by from time to time to check in wouldn’t raise any red flags. Just as it won’t be too alarming if I’m coming and going in and out of your place every now and then.”

Using the words coming and in and out had been a mistake and his dick was lodging a formal complaint.

She opened her mouth again, and Van heard her arguments in his head before she’d uttered a single syllable.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he began, pressing his fingers firmly against her lips once more. “But we aren’t horny teenagers sneaking in and out of each other’s bedroom windows. We are grown-ass adults who can handle this discreetly.” He knew he sounded desperate, but he felt desperate, dammit. He’d had a taste of her, and there was no limit to what he’d do for more.

Beneath his fingers, Stella Jo smiled. A sight that both froze and warmed his cold, dead heart all at once.

“You have no idea what I was going to say.” She arched a brow, challenging him to argue.

“Okay. Enlighten me, cowgirl.”

Covering his fingers with her soft supple ones and removing them from her mouth, she met his stare. “I was going to say… How much longer until you’ve been here thirty days?”