She was just spreading a fresh cut of cheesecloth across the wood when she heard Robert calling her from the house.
Wiping her hands on the back of her jeans, Kylie let the grinder go again and left the rack to fill on its own while she walked back to the door. Shielding her eyes from the high-noon sun, it took her a moment before she realized the figure standing next to Robert couldn’t possibly have been Braden. He was too short, too skinny, although that dark three-piece suit should have given it away from the beginning. Still with the sun in her eyes, for a brief moment she could almost have sworn her eyes were playing tricks on her.
They had a visitor. Shielding her eyes again, Kylie tried not to let her impatience show as she wondered why she should need to be involved in a purchase made at the fruit stand. Robert waved for her to come up and join them, but Kylie could already hear the grinder calling her back to it. In about thirty seconds, it was going to need another rack. And she had definitely not spent the last month laboring over this machine to put it all on hold now.
She shook her head once, then motioned them to come to the barn. Robert crooked his finger at her, a little more insistently before pointing to the ground directly in front of him. That was a cheap shot; a ‘come here, young lady, I’ve going to bust your butt’ sort of gesture, and Kylie didn’t bother hiding her frown from either of them now. She snapped her fingers once, pointed stiffly to the ground directly in front of her, and then walked away from the open door so she couldn’t see his reply. As she headed back to the grinder, she thought she heard someone bark a sharp laugh. It didn’t sound like Robert.
Oh well, she’d known when she did it how Robert was likely going to react, but the end result was still what she wanted: she paused the grinder, slid the third rack into place and was spreading out the next cheesecloth when Robert brought the stranger down to the barn.
The look on Robert’s face could have become The Look with very little effort. It promised they were going to discuss that snap at the first opportunity that he could arrange, and not to be surprised if she took part in that conversation panty-less and while studying his bootlaces.
“Hi, honey.” She smiled at him sweetly, and switched the grinder back on. “What can I do for you?”
Her bottom was already tingling.
“Mrs. Appleby?” The man in the suit left Robert’s side with his hand outstretched to shake hers.
“Morgan,” she corrected, but shook it anyway. “Kylie Morgan.”
[A few pages later, after the suit has gone back to his car to fetch some papers for Kylie…]
She couldn’t help it. She lightly slapped his stomach with the back of her hand as she laughed.
He caught her wrist, bringing her hand to his mouth so he could press a tender kiss upon the backs of her fingers. Apparently, looking at those reminded him of her earlier sassiness. “Oh yeah, you snapped at me.”
“It was just a little snap.” Kylie tried to sidestep, but he spun around, bending down as his arm swooped over her head and locked vise-like around her back. He picked her up by her waist, lifting her clean off her feet while pinning her against his hip.
Tucked up under his arm like a football, Kylie barely muffled her startled/delighted shrieks as she was lugged out of the doorway and into the shadows of the barn where neither Braden nor the government man could see them.
“What makes you think I answer to the snaps of your little fingers?” he asked, grinning down at her upturned rump.
“You’re a man?” she replied, catching the back of his leg with both hands and struggling to gain enough leverage to heave herself upright again. “You’ll do whatever I tell you, or sleep on the couch for the rest of your life!” She erupted into shrieks of yelps and laughter, making absolutely no effort at all to muffle those as he leveled a fury of brisk swats all over her jean-clad bottom. “Ow! Ow!”
“I’m a what now?”
“You’re a ma—ye-owch!” She kicked her feet, flailing her hands and trying to climb his legs to his back pockets, unable to get high enough to grab onto his arm and stop his wildly spanking hand from descending even one more time. There was a definite flush of heat building in the seat of her jeans, a lovely stinging discomfort that only intensified when his hand finally paused again, flowing from the curves of her bottom into the shadowy recess between her thighs.
“You want to try that again?” Robert asked, smiling. “I’ll spank you all day long, if I have to.”
Panting and giggling, Kylie twisted her head back to look up at him. “You’re not a man?”
He laughed, and then he paddled her backside until the heat was a bonfire and a very real thread of discomfort had begun to wind its way into the pleasure that had her laughing until she could barely breathe. “You’re going to feel very silly when that government guy comes back to find you getting your britches dusted like a kid.”
“You’re the boss!” she finally wailed, unable to take any more. “You’re the boss!”
He plopped her back on her feet, pulling her swiftly upright to pin her against the side of the barn wall. She squirmed, trying to get her hands back to catch hold of her flaming backside, but he quickly caught her wrists, leaning into her and holding her there, unable to get away although she had absolutely no intention of doing that.
“This is one man immune to the demanding snaps of your dainty little fingers,” he breathed, but his eyes belied that for the lie it was. They turned smoky, and she felt the answering lick of flames tickling between her legs when he said, “Hands behind your head.”
She obeyed the instant he released her wrists, freeing his hands to wander down the length of her, caressing their way behind her to cup and squeeze the cheeks he had so playfully assaulted. She felt the brush of his fingers along the seam of her jeans, following the line down between her buttocks until they were pressed against the aching folds of her sex.
“Shall I prove I’m the boss?” he asked, one finger stroking along the slit of her until she could feel every ridge of that Levi seam digging into her sex.
“Shall I?” she countered huskily, her breath hitching in the back of her throat when he squeezed again, parting her buttocks to dig his fingers in between. He smiled, but she was the first to utter her command. “Kiss me.” And she snapped her fingers for emphasis, even as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
His mouth turned that crooked smile of his positively wolfish. He jerked her hips far enough off the barn wall to land a sharply playful slap to the side of her ass, but then his lips found hers and softly, sweetly, he kissed the bones right out of her legs.
Just Right!
