Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(33)
“Your jeans are pretty muddy, too,” he murmured, raising one foot, then the next, onto his knee, slipping the boots down and off.
“Isn’t that terrible?” I asked. His eyes were asking me, how far did I want this to go?
Further.
I nodded, offering a smile as I added another zipper to the mix. As he removed my boots, he watched as I thumbed open the button on my jeans and wiggled my hips a little, just barely pushing them down.
“Hold on there.” His hands covered mine, his fingers slipping inside the edge of my jeans and tugging slightly. “Mmm, there we go.”
There had been a time in my life where just the idea of standing naked in front of a man would have made me break out into a cold sweat and would have covered my staying-completely-clothed body with gooseflesh. Naked? And worse yet, in the daytime?
He’d see! He’d see it all! The dimples in my skin, the not-perfectly-smooth thighs, the way my legs pressed together in the middle and likely always would, the way my panties would never just casually sit on my hips, but band inward, denting the soft skin there. Everything so damn soft and squishy.
All true. Every bit of it. And every inch, no matter how soft or squishy, made up me, made up Natalie. But then I learned something important about men; something that almost without fail was always true.
Men love a naked woman. But more than that, they love a confident naked woman. Now, everyone has a type, of course, and preferences about how tall or short, athletic or voluptuous, and there’s no discounting that. But a woman who loves her body, and knows what she wants? There’s nothing sexier than that.
To a real man.
And once I realized this, realized that this exact version of Natalie was how I was supposed to be, and that my body could make a man literally fall to his knees . . . things got a lot more fun for me.
I was standing in the middle of a barn with an almost-stranger, and he was taking my jeans off. And I was encouraging it. Willing it. I didn’t have many rules when it came to dating; I was all equal opportunity when it came to getting mine. But getting naked on the first date? Not typically my scene.
Then again, this wasn’t a date. This was a barn, and I was in it with the man I’d been crushing on for months. Technically, we’d been seeing each other for a long time . . .
Let this happen, I urged myself, and I gave in to everything I was feeling. Which at the moment was supreme satisfaction, watching as his face changed, taking in my lacy panties, emerald green with black scallops.
“Did you wear those for me?” he asked.
“You mean when I woke up this morning thinking all I had on the agenda was a pancake breakfast with councilman Chad Bowman?” Once again, he picked up each foot and placed it on his knee, his fingertips dragging gently along the back of my thigh, teasing and slow.
“So you wore these for pancakes?”
“I wore these for me, you big caveman.” I sighed, then giggled as he tickled at the sensitive skin behind my knee. “Girls mostly buy lingerie for themselves. Guys are usually happy with white cotton panties, as long as they get to see them.”
“I like the lace,” he said, tugging the last of the denim from my leg, easing it over my heel. “But you’re right, your ass would look incredible in white cotton panties.”
He looked equal parts dangerous and sweet, kneeling at my feet with the cockiest grin imaginable. He looked down at my toes, painted bubble-gum pink with teeny red polka dots, my left foot still resting on his knee.
His gaze followed his hands as he ran them slowly back up my leg, wrapping his long, tanned fingers around my calf, kneading the muscle there. Coaxing my leg to butterfly out slightly, he slid his hands higher up my leg, one holding on to my knee while the other spanned across my thigh, my fair Irish skin a strong contrast to his darker hands. Some of his knuckles looked like they’d been broken before. Imperfectly perfect, and I let out the softest sigh when I saw how incredible they looked on my leg.
He leaned down, dropped a wet kiss on the top of my kneecap, his finger tracing the edge of a scar there. “A brawl?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “With my brother. I was seven; he was nine. I’d stolen Darth Vader. He had every right to try and retake it with his lightsaber.” He smiled into my skin as I continued, dropping kisses all around. “Scars are like a map, you know? They’re little clues, hints about the person who wears them.”
“Maybe I’ll learn something about this gorgeous girl with the great”—he paused for effect—“big ass.”
For someone who didn’t talk much, when he did, he chose his words well. But before I could ask him anything else, the kisses he’d been languishing across my knee began to move farther up my thigh. His breath was warm on my skin, making it pebble, and that same low sound came from the back of his throat, making me shiver once more. He gripped my leg harder, seeming to ground himself in the touch.
He looked up at me, and now I was the one sweeping his hair back from his face.
“Are we really doing this?” he asked, his voice the slightest bit shaky. Was he thinking the same things I was a moment before? Too fast, too soon, too perfect, too yes exactly we are doing this?
As I looked into his eyes, I knew I wanted this, right now.
“Some girls would say no, it’s too soon, will he respect me tomorrow, what will he think of me . . . all thoughts that should be going through my head right now.”