He nodded to let her know that he understood, then guided the ungloved hand beneath his shirt. He pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. "It is no different," he said. Then she had the other, gloved hand in his shirt. She felt his insistent heartbeat, so powerful in its pounding, the pulse of his life beneath her hands. She raked her fingers over his muscles. The wild scent of horses mingled sharply with his spiciness. She closed her eyes and took a deep, heady breath, and experienced a wave of pleasant dizziness.
He gripped her wrists and pressed her against Mighty Boy, touched his lips to her ear. "Perhaps this attraction I feel for you is the first to come between me and my love for horses," he said with a little laugh.
She shifted her head back. A bead of sweat jiggled on his chin, beside a tiny flake of hay. She dabbed the droplet with the back of her bare hand, touched the hay flake away and pulled it past his lips, yet did not let herself touch them. He took her hand from his cheek, then curled her fingers into his own. He inhaled the fragrance on her wrist, kissed it.
She began trembling as he lowered his arm around her waist and pressed her harder into Mighty Boy, layering her between the heat of two powerful bodies. She pulled her fingers free of his grip and plunged her hands into his long hair and down his neck, across the hard muscles of his shoulders.
Then, just as their lips drew near, Greta reeled her head away with a shake, as if snapping awake from frightening dream - he had taken her gloved hand in his own.
"No," she said, struggling.
He tightened his hold on her. "What are you hiding, Greta? What is it you are so afraid to show me?" Then suddenly, Matthew's image appeared in her mind's eye.
An agonized moan escaped her, and she let out a small, frustrated cry. She had to leave, at once. "I can't," she said, bringing her lips closer to his. "Do you hear me, I can't."
Or could she? Could she just once, to have him completely in her memory forever? Yes, just this one time. Quickly, she thought, before Matthew returns and makes it impossible for her to go any further.
Lips parting ardently, she hungrily drew in his breath as their mouths joined.