"That is not fair."
"I don’t remember promising fair."
I want to tell him about fair. About the bills, and the hard knot of fear in my stomach every time my phone rings with a call from the development company. I want to tell him about loyalty and the old edge of hunger that keeps me saying yes to bosses who stopped being the people I thought they were. Or how I hate being the reason my daughter notices I stare at my checkbook too long at the end of the month. None of that will come out. All that arrives is a breath of surrender.
Lifting my hands to his chest, I feel the steady beat of his heart under my palm. I have tried to make this about curiosity and maybe about the thrill of a fight. Right now, it is neither. It is need; clean and bright and terrifying.
He lowers his head, the brim of his hat brushes my hair, and then his mouth is on mine. The first sweep of his lips is a question for exactly half a second. Then everything breaks open. Heat climbs my spine. I rise on my toes and fist my hands in his shirt, and let myself fall into the kind of kiss that erases a day, the week, and any plan for keeping my life neat.
He tastes of a future I told myself not to imagine. His hands frame my face as though I’m precious or he’s memorizing every detail.
When we finally pull apart a fraction, and our breaths tangle between us, the first words that climb out of me are the ones I have been trying to ignore. "This can't last."
He doesn't release me. His thumb slides across my cheekbone, slow and careful. "Why not?"
"You know why." I hear the answer in my own voice, and it is both logical and desperate. "Your ranch is your life. My job is child and what is best for her is mine. We are on opposite sides."
He tips his forehead to mine, his hat pushing up on his head. He doesn’t argue, not yet. "Maybe they don't have to be sides. Maybe they are just different roads that touch."
"They cross at a stop sign in the middle of town, and then they go away from each other again," I say, while trying to make my mouth move away from his hand. The way he is touching me is not helping my discipline.
"I can't sell my land," he says, steady and unwaveringly.
I know this about him. That ground is his history and his hope. When he talks, his shoulders set the way Emma’s do when she clutches her rabbit.
"You can't walk away from your work right now. I get it. None of that changes what is happening right now," he continues.
I tip my chin and pretend that I am the one in control of this. "Admitting this doesn't fix anything."
"Then we won’t try to fix it tonight," he says. The corner of his mouth lifts. "We will just admit it."
I give him the glare I use on grown men in suits who try to talk over me in meetings. It slides off him like water. "This does not mean I agree with you."
"Good," he says, and there is heat and humor in his words. "I like a woman who makes me fight for it."
My laugh catches and then breaks into a breath when he kisses me again. This one is deeper. This one moves slowly enough that I can feel each shift, each new pressure, each brush that learns something about me.
He eases back an inch, and my mouth chases him without permission. I want to deny that I am that girl, the one whoreaches, the one who asks for more. Now he knows better. He slides a hand into my hair, and it loosens out of the ponytail that did not survive bedtime. His other hand finds my waist and pulls me so close to him that I can feel how hard he is.
"Walk with me," he says, quiet like a secret, just between us.
I nod, and we head toward the old barn that sits just beyond the downtown square. The grass whispers under our steps. The sky is a black bowl full of small cold fires. Somewhere in the dark, the neighbor's wind chime gives a soft clink, once, twice, and then the breeze changes, and it goes still.
The barn smells like hay and dust. There is a clean slice of moonlight across the center aisle, and the rest is soft shadow. He stops where the light hits the packed dirt. My sweater slips down one shoulder, and he lifts it back into place with two fingers—the smallest domestic act in the world. This hits me harder than the kiss. The tenderness in it steals my breath.
"You fit here," he says, not looking away when he says it.
"That makes it worse," I say, and the truth of it is a weight and a promise.
He waits, and I appreciate that about him. He knows when to move and when to let quiet make space for an answer. I step in close again because the space without him feels wrong now. When he leans down, I rise, and we meet in the middle. The kiss is an intense, slow slide, making me feel every second of it. I takemy time learning him. The shape of his lower lip between my teeth, the sound he makes when I trace the edge of his jaw, the way his breath stutters when I press my palm to the warm skin at the base of his throat.
"Asher," I say, and it is half a warning.
"Tell me to stop," he says, but his hand spreads at the small of my back like he hopes I won’t.
I don’t tell him to stop. I cannot. Want blurs the edges of everything into something sweet and immediate. I press closer and feel the hard line of his cock. If he could feel me, he’s fine me wet with wanting him.
A coyote yips out by the fence line. He goes still. I inhale, and a laugh rises—thin and unsure, the first after a long time. "Your timing, wild thing," I whisper toward the door. The night, merciful and unmerciful, goes quiet again.