She twisted up and looked over her shoulder at him, carnal awareness battling with self-control in her eyes as surely as it was battling in his mind. Then she handed him a halter combo and a leather rein.

Damn, the leather gave him impure thoughts. He tucked the halter under his arm and stretched the rein between his hands.

Two seconds. That’s all it would take for him to bind her wrists to the handle on the side of the box and stretch her across the top as tightly as strings on a guitar. Wouldn’t be the first time he took a leather strap to her body. His blood throbbed beneath his skin, imagining all the ways he could bring her pleasure in that position.

He closed his eyes, his breath coming in starts and fits, gripping the rein hard enough that it cut into the fleshy part of his palms. “Tell me to get away from you. Tell me to leave you alone.”

As he stood frozen, torn between ravenous need and his integrity, Rachel stood. Her hips shifted to stroke him in the cleft of her buttock. Her fingers found his jaw, and she scraped her nails over the stubble of his neck and chin. “And if I don’t?”

He stroked the back of her arm with the rein. “If you don’t do what I tell you, then you’re going to pay the price.”

Rachel molded her body into his. She tipped her head back to rest on his collarbone, her breathing ragged. “We should not be here like this.”

True enough, but he was too far gone to care. “Close the lid, and don’t say another word.” He hadn’t used that voice in a while. The low, fierce command. Threatening to anyone’s ears but Rachel’s, who knew from experience that there’d be no repercussions if she didn’t follow his command, that despite the force behind his words he’d never get dangerous with her. She obeyed him because she wanted to, and he never forgot that. Even when he was so aroused that he couldn’t remember his own name. The power was Rachel’s to give or take back as she pleased.

He waited for her to make the choice, his hands clutching the rein, listening to the rustling sound of the horses and the surge of blood in his ears.

She bent forward and closed the lid.

He gritted his teeth as a wave of arousal crashed through him. Game on, baby.

Dropping his arm to his side, the leather strap unfurled from his hand. He shook it out and gave Rachel time to change her mind.

She remained tipped forward over the box, her hands braced against the closed lid, her legs apart. She glanced sideways at the rein, breathing in even, shallow breaths through parted lips. She knew what was coming, and it turned her on as much as it did him. He leaned in and brushed his lips across her cheek before taking her mouth in a hard, ravishing kiss.

He broke away, gasping for air. They didn’t have time for this. People were waiting. It was nearly noon and the stable sat in the center of Rachel’s bustling family enterprise. Not too far away from the stable, he heard the sounds of the guest families. Chatting, their children laughing and playing. Somewhere nearby, an engine revved. That would be Rachel’s farmhands working on the tractor.

Screw it all. He needed this. Rachel needed this. Besides, no one would know. And that made what they were doing even more intoxicatingly wicked.

A bowline knot came fast for his practiced fingers. Sliding his hand down her arm, he waited for the resulting shiver to leave her body before taking her wrist in hand.

“Other wrist too,” he commanded.

She brought it to meet her right wrist and held still, allowing him to slip the loop over both. He jerked the end of the rein, removing the slack, binding her arms together. She whimpered, the little mewling sound she almost always made when she was close to orgasm.

His brain and his cock screamed, AGAIN.

That morning, he’d jerked off in the shower to the memory of her making that sound. And here he was, a few hours later, hearing it fall from her lips. He hadn’t even touched her but a little, and nowhere near her erogenous zones. If she were that close to coming already, then maybe she needed this even worse than he’d suspected.

“Turn around and face me.”

His cock pulsed as she obeyed. There was no more battle in her eyes as she looked at him. Arousal had won the day.

“Lie back.”

She hitched her ass on the edge of the lid and reclined. He grabbed hold of the knot binding her wrists to support her weight as she lowered. When she’d settled, he kicked her boots as far apart as her legs would go. The end of the rein in hand, he walked to the far side of the box and threaded the leather through the handle, pulling it tight, stringing her torso across the box. The act brought out a moan from her, but it wasn’t the sound he needed to hear again.

She watched his face as he secured the rein to the handle with a second bowline knot. He brushed hair away from her eyes, then traced over the cinnamon freckles of her cheeks. She was so damn pretty, and the fire of life and intelligence in her eyes glowed so damn bright. His flame. His beautiful, complicated flame.

She drew his finger into her mouth and held it in place with her teeth as she suckled it, flicking the end with her tongue.

Given the position and angle she lay at, he could brace his knees on the box and feed her his cock. He knew she’d take it greedily. She’d do whatever he asked of her—suck him off, swallow. Whatever he wanted. The knowledge of his power nearly had him unzipping his pants. But then, if he did that, she wouldn’t make the sounds he craved, nor experience the sharp, sweeping pleasure he wanted so fervently to bring her before they got to anything else.

“Stay,” he growled.

His senses dazed, he stumbled away from her and snagged a rope hanging from a nail in the wall. His vision tunneled on the sliding stable doors.

At the door, he glanced sideways at her. She lay where he’d left her, her legs apart. Beautiful, strong, gifting him with the power to command her pleasure.

He threaded the rope through the door handles and knotted it. No one would get through the door now. Unless lightning struck, or the world collapsed beneath them, nothing was going to interrupt what he was about to do to Rachel.

He stopped by the washbasin to scrub his hands again, deliberately slow, letting her lie there, letting the tension build between them until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Then he advanced on her, adjusting his rock-hard erection to run diagonally along his hip within his briefs. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Disco stroll lazily into his stall. None of the animals seemed to be paying them any mind. Good. He didn’t have the patience to deal with them now.

He stopped near her head and lowered his lips onto hers, kissing her deeply. Beneath her T-shirt, her small, gorgeous breasts thrust toward the ceiling, beckoning to be touched. He cupped one, loving the way it felt in his hand. Breaking the kiss, he moved his mouth to her chest, pulling the shirt up and the bra down to gain access. Her freed breast jiggled beneath a nipple drawn up so tight, hardly any areola remained around it. He set his mouth over her, curling his tongue around her taut flesh. He flicked it with the slightest touch, knowing she preferred it harder.

“Suck it,” she whispered, panting. “Please.”

Her plea laid waste to the last vestiges of his control.

He tore away from her nipple and loomed over her, cupping the back of her head in his hand. With his mouth close to hers, he said quietly, “Are you telling me what to do? I think you were. You know what that means?”

“What?” she breathed, her eyes dark with passion.

“It means I’m going to touch you so lightly you won’t be able to stand it.”

She shivered.

He pulled her other breast free and traced her nipple with his fingertip. She arched up to him, but he stayed with her, adjusting his pressure to her squirming, desperate body. Closing his mouth over her nipple, he brushed the tip with his tongue as gently as a feather might, then he traced her areola with his tongue as his finger had. When it was good and wet, he lifted his mouth and blew on it.

Rachel groaned.

He fixed his mouth on it again and captured her nipple in his teeth. But instead of flicking it with his tongue, he simply held it there and breathed on it. Her groans became a panting cry, but still not the sound he wanted to hear from her again.

Holding her nipple in his teeth, he pressed a hand between her legs along the seam of her pants until his hand was over where her clit would be, two layers of fabric below. With his fingertip, he tapped hard and rhythmically against the warm denim, willing the sound he wanted to hear into being. Though she squirmed and arched, she remained silent until he wound his hand back and unleashed a single, forceful throttle against her crotch as, finally, he sucked her nipple as hard as he could.

That brought up the mewling whimper from her throat.

After several more forceful sucks on her nipple, he repositioned himself between her legs. Steeling his hand into a flat paddle, he let rip with another hard hit right into the seam of her jeans.

“More,” she begged.

So demanding. He unsnapped the button of her fly, then rolled her to her stomach and yanked her jeans and panties down as far as they’d go with her legs spread, which wasn’t all that far. Still, the round swells of her bottom were exposed. Taking her soft, willing flesh in his hands, he parted the cheeks to catch a glimpse of the secrets her body protected. The places he wanted to sink his fingers and tongue and cock inside.

He ran his thumb inside the crease, delving deeper, lower, until he hit the honey of her arousal. Whew, she was wet for him. He dipped lower still, and she bucked the second his fingertip hit the swollen rise of her clit. She squirmed, clearly trying to increase the pressure of his touch. He lightly pinched her clit, plumping it between two fingers.