But he didn’t move. He just looked at her. The thunder rolled over the mountaintop, through her body and seemed to fill up her chest in a way that words couldn’t right now. Propelling her heart on. Propelling them both further down some path she wasn’t sure they were ever going to be able to find their way back from.

He took a step toward her. And she held fast.

Then he lifted his hand, putting it on her cheek. He had done that before. He had touched her before like this, but it was different. As he moved his thumb slowly over her rain-dampened skin, it all felt new.

The act of being touched. Ryder’s hands.

The rain pounded down around them now, slid down her face, rolled off the brim of his cowboy hat, and as he tilted his head down, water poured from there. And she didn’t care. She just didn’t care, because she had to know.

She had to know.

And then he was pulling her close, bringing her under that brim and shielding her from the rain, angling his head and kissing her deeper than he had the first time.

She felt weightless. Breathless. And she did like it.

Those lips, firm and commanding and different than any man she had ever kissed. The stiff, scratchy feel of his whiskers against her face, the way he moved. Sure and certain.

And most of all, there was just something indefinably him. Something that went beyond anything as simple as the shape of his mouth or the strength of his frame, his beard or the squareness of his jaw. Something that went beyond physical and rested somewhere deeper.

Something like pixie dust.

Something that might make her fly.

There were other things you needed. She could vaguely remember how that line went.

Faith. Trust.

But then her mind was blank and she couldn’t think anymore. Because his hands were big and rough and cupping her face, and there was something hollow and aching expanding inside her. Like loneliness but better because the creator of it might also be the completion for it, and he was right there, kissing her like it was better than breathing.

He moved his hands from her face, wrapping his arms around her, down her waist, her hips, to her thighs. Then he picked her up off the ground, wrapping her legs firmly around his waist. His stomach was firm, flat. And with every step he took toward her caravan she felt vibration between her thighs, and he was still devouring her mouth, making her feel things that no man ever had before.

How was this possible? It was never like this.

She didn’t even want it to be. She didn’t like it.

She liked for people to think she was out of control.

She even liked to pretend that she might be.

But she never really was.

The more outrageous she was the more she controlled the conversation. The more she controlled people around her. It made her feel safe.