Sabrina’s teasing proved increasingly unbearable for Trevor. As much as he might have approved of her choice in underwear, it was off in the next instant, and Trevor flung it into the corner of the truck bed. He shucked his own even faster.

  When he eased himself into her for the first time, Sabrina arched herself off the bedroll and whimpered for more. Trevor was massive but it wasn’t enough—it wasn’t nearly enough. She needed movement, friction, passion. Only when he started to rock against her did she get a taste of the hot thrill she craved. She was desperate—desperate and hungry, eager for Trevor to lose himself in her the same way she was losing herself in him.

  “Trevor…yes…” she begged him in whispers. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Please.” She didn’t even care if she was making sense. Her body spoke to him louder than her words, and Trevor knew exactly what she wanted. He increased his pace, thrusting and plunging into her. Sabrina bucked and cried beneath him, and he slipped his arms around her to clutch her to his chest.

  “Sabrina.” The way he moaned her name made her shudder. She cupped his face in her hands, relishing how the tension in his jaw matched the clenched, unbearable tension of her body. Every hitch of his hips against her own, every new take on the rhythm they made together, heated the coil of pleasure tightening inside her. Every plunge of his rigid length threatened to overwhelm her anew. She could scarcely believe there was room enough inside her to fit him.

  It was a ride she certainly had no intention of being rescued from.

  “Trevor,” she murmured again. There was something more lingering on the tip of her tongue than just the too-fleeting taste of him. His kisses were an addiction she couldn’t satisfy no matter how much she tilted her chin and begged breathlessly for them. His tongue seemed to harden in tandem with every thrust of his cock, until she had trouble keeping track of where and how he was fucking her. He filled her utterly—mind, body, and soul. If only she could find the words to convey to him just how much she needed him.

  The heat of his chest and the delicious sensation of being overfull with him made her peak too soon. Sabrina tried desperately to resist the pressure building inside her, but there was no hope for it—and if there ever had been, Trevor’s uttered oath would have put her over the edge anyway.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Her hips collided with his rough downward thrust as his body jerked against hers. She opened her mouth to cry out, and Trevor swallowed her cry in a single, earth-shattering kiss.

  Sabrina collapsed into his arms, and Trevor pulled his work coat over them to keep the cold off. Sabrina snuggled close to his chest and felt herself starting to drowse as his thundering heartbeat slowed and lulled her into a stupor. The stars winked overhead, a silent, approving party to their union.

  “We’d better get back,” Trevor said eventually. Sabrina turned in his arms, smiled dreamily, and nodded. The night around them was cooling, but she didn’t intend to be out of his embrace for long.

  She thought Trevor would follow her into the bunkhouse. Instead, he stopped at the foot of the porch steps, and pulled her in for a lingering kiss. Sabrina’s heart lit up with a new, sudden joy—Trevor was claiming her on his own homestead, out in the open where anyone could see. What could this be but a deliberate statement? A cry to anyone listening that Sabrina was his? Oh, and she’d show him how true that was, how much she trusted him, needed him, wanted—

  Trevor pulled away.

  Sabrina chased his lips and stole one more kiss. Then she took his hand and drew him toward the steps. Trevor hung back, and Sabrina paused, frowning.

  “Aren’t you coming in?”

  Trevor looked away, his expression almost sheepish. “It’s just, I’ve got…” Then—without any trace of irony or hint that he was pulling her leg—he pulled one of his checklists out of his back pocket.

  “I’ve got a few things to take care of,” he muttered. “And as soon as the horses get back, I’ll need to wrap Tex’s legs and make sure he’s plenty hydrated after that run.”

  “Oh…right.” Sabrina stood crestfallen, feeling mildly foolish. What could she say to that? She wasn’t hard-hearted enough to suggest that Trevor should forget his horses for the evening and focus solely on her. Still…she had hoped.

  “Will you be late?”

  “Pretty late,” said Trevor. “You should get some sleep.”

  Sabrina swallowed her hurt. This wasn’t personal, except it was. “Okay,” she said. “Just try to get to bed at a reasonable hour, all right? Goodnight.” She turned quickly away from him so he wouldn’t be able to see the expression on her face.

  “Sabrina—” he began.

  But she had already let herself into the bunkhouse. She shut the door behind her and leaned back against it. Trevor had work to do—she got that. She did. And Pete and the ranch hands deserved their night off. But she deserved good things, too. Someone to wake up with, to hold her through the night.

  This is just insecurity, she told herself. She’d given Trevor a lot of herself tonight, not just her body, but a piece of her heart. A piece of her childhood, her story, her trust. She’d handed him all that, but what was she to him? What did he feel for her? She didn’t know.

  But I know how I feel.

  She felt alone.

  11

  TREVOR

  “You’re mad at me,” Trevor said. “You can go ahead and admit it.”

  He had roped Sabrina into helping him clear out the attic of the farmhouse. He had been so busy enjoying the view of her doubled over and crawling between boxes, her tight posterior clad in those ridiculous jeans, that he almost hadn’t noticed the dangerous current in the air.

  “I’m not mad,” she said. Her perfect teeth clicked together at the end of her sentence.

  “Uh-huh.” Trevor kept his eyes on her. He didn’t believe a word she’d just said.

  “It’s just that…” Sabrina’s voice was tight with exasperation. Trevor sat back and drew his knee up to his chest as he waited for her to spit it out. Sabrina didn’t disappoint. She turned and exhaled loudly. “It’s just that I didn’t want last night to end the way it did. It was so perfect—maybe the most perfect day I’ve ever had in my life—but then…”

  Her words caught Trevor off guard. He’d left her smiling. She’d been fine—hadn’t she? Trevor wanted to protest, but he didn’t know what to say. Sabrina knew what it took to keep a ranch this size running. It wasn’t like her to begrudge him doing his job. All he could do was wait for her to get the words out.

  Sabrina scooted closer to him. “You just…you left. I’d have waited up if you’d offered, but…”

  “I didn’t finish till late. I’d have been crawling in bed with you at quarter past two.” He’d thought about it, sure—thought about sneaking back and knocking on her door—but he’d struck a deal with the ranch hands to start early so he could sleep late. He couldn’t assume Sabrina would be okay with them seeing him leaving in the morning.

  Sabrina sighed so roughly it was almost a growl. “If you’d asked, I’d have told you I’d be fine with that.”

  Trevor’s brows drew together. He didn’t like feeling stupid. Pete had accused him of being a lug more than once when it came to women, but women were harder to read than horses.

  “I didn’t think,” he admitted finally. “I got up in my head. I thought you might get pissed if the hands saw me leave. And then I started thinking you might need some space. To think about things. Y’know, about us.”

  Sabrina made a strange sound, not quite a laugh. “I swear, you strong, silent types—you need to use your words.” She fiddled with her earring and stared at the dusty wood floor. Finally, she pointed to something behind him. “I’ll forgive you,” she said, “if you give me that bowl. That one. There.”

  Trevor craned around to look. He had just been building a pile of items to discard. At the top of the pile was an old copper bowl that had belonged to his grandmother.

  “What do you want that for?” he asked her. No matter how he tried to imagine a use for it, he just couldn’t.

  Sabrina moved in close beside him and pulled the bowl into her lap. “I’m going to use it to make something beautiful,” she promised.

  He watched the way she lovingly stroked the bowl in her hand. His grandmother, he decided in that moment, would have loved Sabrina.

  “Trust me,” she persisted. “This is going to be put to good use. But I’d like it to be a surprise, if that’s okay.”

  Trevor’s mouth twitched itself into a smile. “Normally I don’t like surprises,” he reminded her. Sabrina just leaned in and pressed a swift kiss to his cheek. She pulled back with a satisfied giggle—one that soon resolved itself into surprised, full-throated laughter as Trevor pushed the bowl out of her lap and pinned her to the floor beneath him.

  “What, right here?” she gasped as he ravished her neck. “Mr. Wild, I didn’t think you liked surprises!”

  “I know what I like,” he reassured her. “I also know where and when I like it.”

  “Mmm,” Sabrina hummed in approval as he began to unbutton the front of her blouse. “Are you sure? You might not be able to strike ‘clean attic’ off your checklist for the day.”

  “Screw the checklist,” Trevor growled.

  “Now, there’s a surprise!” Sabrina laughed with delight as he bent close to kiss her sweet lips. Having her here with him, lying beneath him, made it remarkably easy to savor the unexpectedness of the moment—and to forget all about his work obligations. He had chores to see to—he always did—but they would still be waiting when he’d made up with Sabrina.

  Right now, his attention was all on her. He paused, lips hovering above her skin, with only enough room left between them to breathe. He took his time slowly inhaling the familiar floral scent of her hair. When he pressed his mouth to the tender spot just below her ear, he tasted the clean comfort of her warm skin. He lost himself in listening to the faint, ecstatic throb of her pulse, before the sound of his own heart beating in his ears overwhelmed it.

  He spoke before he realized his brain had given his mouth orders to do so.

  “Sabrina, this thing between us…”

  She stilled beneath him, but it wasn’t resistance. He drew back to look at her. Her blonde hair fanned out around her pale, beautiful face like rays wreathing the sun. The flush in her cheeks brought out every freckle. Her eyes had freckles, too, he realized, flecks and flares of emerald green, lost but not beyond discovery in the blues of her irises.

  “We don’t have to put a name to it,” she breathed. “Not if you don’t want to.”

  Something in her face told him otherwise. She looked so vulnerable laid out beneath him, yet the softness of her face was less pronounced all of a sudden. There was more steel in her eyes than he remembered. Was she guarding herself—protecting herself—from the noncommittal answer she claimed to have no stake in?

  He couldn’t guess what answer was the right one. All he could do was give her the true one.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you, Sabrina Hearthstone.”

  In all his past relationships, he had never been the first to say it—now, he wasn’t sure he had ever really meant it, or known what it was he was confessing. Because it had never been like this.

  Sabrina’s eyelashes fluttered, like butterflies taken by a surprise gust of wind. “I think I’m falling for you too, Trevor Wild,” she whispered. She raised herself up on one elbow, cupped his face, and pressed her lips to his. The lightness of her touch, combined with her words, made his heart stutter in his chest.

  His hands slid down her body, reverent in their exploration. He took this new knowledge of what she felt for him and relearned everything he knew about her: her trim waist, her taut abdomen, the dimple of her belly button and the smooth, velvet plane leading to heaven below. He laid his lips upon her stomach as his finger caught in the front of her pants and inched them down her hips. He could have sworn he heard Sabrina purr.

  “Mmm.” Her suppressed moan was delicious, and with every inch of her that was revealed he pressed another kiss to her skin. She arched her hips off the ground as he tugged her jeans and her underwear all the way down her slender legs. She kicked them away as he dragged his lips along her inner thigh. “Trevor.” The way she murmured his name as he savored her was sweet, sensual music to his ears.

  His kisses carried him back up between Sabrina’s legs, and he darted his tongue out to taste her wet, pink slit. God, there was nothing better than listening to the way her breath hitched and her hips bucked hard into the floor when he did that. He licked and sucked and nibbled her until her thighs quaked on either side of his head. Then he grasped her legs and kept going, holding her still.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned. “You’re good at everything. It’s not fair.”

  “Are you about to come already?” he murmured, lifting his eyes from between her legs to look at her. Judging by the wanton look in her eyes, and the way she gasped and panted, he thought he had his answer. Before she could claim something contrary, he grabbed her hips and pulled her upright with him. He crossed his legs beneath them and settled her onto his lap.

  The next few seconds were a blur as Sabrina fought his fervent, unrelenting kisses, laughing as she struggled to get her hands between them. His belt slithered free, and she practically ripped the front of his jeans open, aided by the fact that he was already straining to be free of them anyway. She took his erection in her fist, and Trevor’s breath caught at the firm pressure.

  “You really want this,” he noted as he yanked his shirt up over his head and grabbed the condom from the back pocket of his jeans.

  “I’m not the only one,” Sabrina retorted. As soon as he had dispensed with his T-shirt, Trevor snatched her face in his hands and thrust his tongue into her gasping mouth—just to show her she had better things to do in this moment than sass him. Sabrina pushed into him eagerly, releasing his cock only long enough to shed her own shirt. Her bare skin felt fiery hot against his.

  Trevor dropped his hands, and sheathed himself before grasping her ass to pull her in closer. Her legs clenched around his waist as he lifted her, then lowered her onto his rigid cock. Sabrina, already slick between the legs from his earlier attentions, undulated her hips just once, and he slid inside her without resistance.

  A shared, explosive groan rocked them both. Trevor buried his face in her shoulder as Sabrina threw her head back, but his body wouldn’t let him pause to catch his breath now. He jounced Sabrina in his lap. His fingers grasped and worked her waist as she rode him. The sensation of her breasts pressed hard against his chest drove him wild. She took over the rhythm, and his hands slid up the small of her back, skimming beads of perspiration as they went.

  “You’re so goddamned beautiful,” he whispered. A tangled, sweat-soaked lock of hair fell across her face as she glanced down at him, her cries mounting. She was beyond response, but she had heard him. That was all that mattered.

  Trevor tensed beneath her, but Sabrina’s hips kept their rhythm, circling and stirring him around inside her. His abdominal muscles tightened, and heat flooded him in a rush. He looped his arms around her and held her close as he shuddered through his completion. His hips gave a few more questing thrusts, and Sabrina’s voice broke on a cry of ecstasy. Her slight frame trembled in his arms as her orgasm took her, and Trevor groaned at the beautiful sight. He carried her down with him, kissing her fervently and relishing the astonished, bell-like clarity of her laugh.

  “Still think I’m good at everything?” he asked in a spent whisper. He pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes as she smiled sleepily at him.

  “Good at everything,” she repeated, “but great at one thing in particular. Feel free to check ‘getting laid’ off your list for the day.”

  It wasn’t on his list for the day. But, Trevor reflected, I wouldn’t mind making it a recurring item.

  “Boss!”

  Pete was shouting and running down the driveway waving his arms. Trevor raised himself off his outside work bench in alarm. Pete was his most laid-back ranch hand, and his most competent—any show of panic from him meant that either something vital was on fire, or it was about to be.

  “Sabrina sent me to get you!” Pete pulled his hat off and pointed toward the bunkhouses. “You better come quick!”

  Trevor dropped the tack he was cleaning. He didn’t ask questions or demand elaboration. He heard Sabrina’s name and ran, leaving his hat and gloves behind him, churning up clouds of dust as he sprinted ahead of Pete. “She’s in the west bunkhouse!” Pete called after him.

  It should have struck him as suspicious that his ranch hand didn’t follow.

  When he got to the bunkhouse, he mounted the steps in a single leap and threw the door open. “Sabrina?” he hollered into the house. He didn’t smell fire, didn’t see smoke, didn’t hear screaming, only—

  “D-don’t come in here!” Sabrina called, from the direction of the bathroom. She sounded panicked, her voice high and tight. Trevor strode across the length of the front room, stopping only when his boot squelched on the rug.

  He stared down in horror. Half of the living room was soggy with water. Under the rug, the boards would be soaking, setting the stage for mildew and mold. Wet rot and termites. The death of a house.

  Sabrina.

  He didn’t say the culprit’s name out loud. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to contemplate the idea that the woman he…the woman…that Sabrina could cause this much damage.

  Trevor hurried to the bathroom and threw the door open. Sabrina glanced up from where she was crouched beneath the sink. She was completely drenched from head to toe, her hair saturated, her white shirt plastered to her chest. A memory flashed across Trevor’s mind, and he recalled the time she had accidentally sprayed herself down with the hose. She’d turned a cute shade of pink, and then she’d laughed. Trevor had laughed with her. That had been a good day.

  But this…this was the opposite of that. It was not cute, not funny, not a good day. This was bad, really bad. A disaster in the making. The bathroom was in absolute chaos, the curtain rod pulled down, the shower curtain on the floor. Water was gushing from the cabinet Sabrina was crawling into. Even from here he could see that she had tried—and failed—to stop the flow of water with her shirt.