The barn greeted us like it remembered, the old wood groaning low in the way a house might sigh when its people come home. It smelled of hay and dirt and memory, every inch of it softened by night. The kind of quiet that made you speak in whispers, even if you weren't saying a thing.
He pushed the door open with his shoulder, the hinge offering a familiar creak. The space beyond felt sacred—not polished or dressed up, but real in the way sacred things are. Honest and raw and lit only by the long wash of moonlight spilling through the high windows.
He led me up the stairs like he'd done it in a dream—each step steady, knowing, like there was something waiting for us at the top that neither of us could outrun. The wood creaked beneath us, announcing our presence, but neither of us paused. By the time we reached the loft, my pulse was a living thing beneath my skin, wild and warm and impossibly aware of every inch of him.
When he finally turned to face me, he let go of my hand—but not the moment. His eyes found mine, not as a question but as a tether. And then he stepped into the space between us and kissed me.
Not tentative. Not rushed. Just real.
His hand found the side of my face with the kind of gentleness that said he'd thought about this more than once. His lips met mine with something that wasn't hunger but something quieter—something careful. And for the first time, I didn't brace for it. Didn't hold tension in my spine or hesitate at the edge of being seen.
I kissed him back with all the parts of me that had spent too long pretending they weren't aching.
This wasn't a firework. It wasn't a wildfire either.
It was something slower.
Something that smoldered.
Something that wanted to last.
Colt's hands slid to my waist, not with urgency, but with something deeper. Something steadier. His palms were warm against my skin, grounding me, and when he drew me back until my spine met the barn wall, it didn't feel like being cornered—it felt like being kept. His body moved against mine with quiet certainty, each breath between us thickening, deepening, until it wasn't just air we shared—it was every unsaid thing.
He didn't speak. Didn't need to. His silence said more than words ever could. The way his mouth found mine again—slow, intent, unhurried—told me this wasn't about release. It was about remembrance. A thousand aching moments we hadn't let ourselves feel until now.
He kissed me like he knew what it cost me to let him. Like he'd waited for this—for me—not as a prize, but as a choice.
When his fingers moved to the buttons of his shirt, they weren't frantic. They were precise. Measured. Like he was peeling back more than cotton—like he was offering me the truth of him, one thread at a time. I helped, my hands brushing his, pulling fabric from skin, and the warmth that met me there nearly buckled my knees. My fingertips trailed the curve of his shoulder, the ridges of old scars, the quiet language of survival written into his body. Every inch of him felt earned.
He didn't rush. Just touched. My ribs, my stomach, the small of my back. Places that hadn't been held in years without bracing. But there was nothing rough in the way he touched me. No urgency. No conquest. Just intention. As if learning my body was the closest thing to prayer he'd ever known.
When his hands found the waistband of my jeans, he paused—not out of doubt, but because he wanted to take it in. Like undressing me wasn't a means to an end, but part of the story itself. He slid the denim down with the kind of care that made my breath catch, his knuckles grazing the inside of my thigh, leaving behind heat that bloomed slow and thick beneath my skin.
YOU ARE READING
Firefly Nights
Non-Fiction▍ AN ORIGINAL ╱ western romance There's a kind of wild you can't outrun. Lemon Odell knows this better than anyone-the kind that lives under your skin, that shapes the way you move, the way you fight, the way you break. Born into a bloodline stitch...
