Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(56)

“And how many parties did you go to since I saw you last, Wyatt? Do girls that hang out at bars ride better than ones that go to charities?”

“It doesn’t matter what you do outside the barn, but in it,” he stabbed back as he eased Danny Boy. He never liked water on his legs, but oddly he liked it on his head, or at least his teeth. If you held the hose up to him, he would always lift his lip and move his head from side to side across the stream. If you did that a few times, he would let you put water anywhere without making too much of a fuss.

If Harley weren’t furious, doing everything she could not to look at Wyatt’s piercing stare, she might have found some kind of awe that Wyatt had remembered that about him. She might have noticed that to Danny Boy, not a moment had passed since he was here before. He’d once again found the only trainer he could tolerate, that he had never managed to buck off. That odd bond Wyatt had with Danny Boy had always made Harley’s heart flutter a little when she was younger, made her think that there was nothing Wyatt could not do simply because he was able to harness the amount of power that Danny Boy always used and find a way to use it where everyone was satisfied.

“And how many girls have you brought in this barn, Wyatt?” Harley asked as she stood, prepared just to engage this tension, to flat out tell him that whatever he thought or assumed about her and Collin was so far off the mark that it was comical. Not only that, but it hurt that he would think she could move on like that, that it hurt that he had moved on.

“I don’t bring anyone here. They show up.”

Harley felt like slugging the hell out of him.

“Is that what they taught you on the road? To say it’s not your fault that you f*cked whoever? They fell at your feet, so you had no choice?”

“And what did they teach you at that charity event?” Wyatt said, dropping the hose and moving to the same side of Danny Boy that Harley was on. He was towering over her, doing his best to mask the pain in his eyes. He could not believe she was faulting him for f*cking anyone when she was in a long-term relationship with Mr. Perfect, bound to marry the son of a bitch. “To make sure your man had a manicure before you let his hand slip between your legs?”

“Fuck you, Wyatt.”

“Not possible,” he said as he stepped forward. He was growing livid. The sight of her in that wash stall, the water that had splashed up on her white tank, those tight riding pants, that long, strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, the flush of her cheeks, those sharp blue green eyes—it was all stirring him, making him lose all his senses and forget any warnings those around him had given him to take this slow.

Harley had never seen this side of Wyatt. He’d always been blunt, but at the same time he was a gentleman. He’d never outright say something like that to her. She was about to ask him what the hell his problem was when Danny Boy turned his neck with more power than needed and slammed Wyatt into her, or at least tried. Wyatt’s body was pressed against hers, his strong arms braced on the wall on either side of her, his face an inch from hers.

Their breaths were causing both their chests to heave. Wyatt’s ice blue eyes were racing across her image. “I could never just f*ck you. That’s not how you taught me to hold you.”

She didn’t take in his words until after she leaned up and took his lips with hers. The sensation of his body against hers, in that wash stall that they had managed to steal moments in almost every day—there was no stopping her body’s reaction. She was still furious with him, furious that he had whomever upstairs in his apartment, but right then she didn’t care. Not when she felt the power behind his lips, not when he forced her mouth open and deepened that kiss to the point where she was forgetting to breathe. His hands started to slide down her, and she didn’t dare stop him.

The feel of him was electric, it burned, and it caused her whole body to ache. She had tried to tell herself that she would never feel this sensation again, that it had only felt that way because she was young, because it was a first, that it wasn’t her partner that made a difference, just the fact that her body was not shocked by the emotion any longer, but clearly that was a lie.

She gasped as she felt that powerful hand slide down her stomach, right past her hips, and move to the scorching heat of her. A moan came from deep in her throat, but he had swallowed that moan with his fierce lips, then he picked her up, wrapped her legs around him, and rocked into her. Harley’s head fell back as his lips slid down her jaw, then her neck. As his hands squeezed her bottom, his long fingers brushed against the part of her body that was aching the most.

Her hands fisted through his hair, ran across his face, slid down his back, pulling him closer. Harley forgot where she was, what she was doing. She was in a quenching dream where only they existed.

“Who is flooding my barn!”

Right as they both heard Camille’s voice from the next hallway, Wyatt let her legs down but took his time slowing the kiss on her lips.

When he did, he held her face in his hands. “Creek tonight.”

Sanity was coming back to Harley. Creek? Why a creek? Not to be romantic, no. But because there is someone in your apartment.

She never had a chance to say a word. Camille had appeared at the front of the wash stall, saw Wyatt’s hands holding Harley’s face like a gentle lover, their eyes connected past that moment.

That gaze between them had reached in the past and reflected every first, every ounce of pain, and pulled them to the present.