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She takes my right boot in both hands, heel and toe, and works it off. She sets it beside the bed and lines it up straight without being told. After the left, she peels off my socks and lays them across the boots.

Her hands stay on the tops of my bare feet, warm and still, until I nod. Then they go back to her thighs, palms up.

Nobody has ever taken my boots off but me. Until right now, I didn't know I wanted her to.

"Shirts," I say. "Mine, then yours."

"Yes, Knox."

She comes up on her knees between mine and unbuttons my flannel from the top down. Her knuckles brush my chest at every button, and my skin jumps under them.

She pushes the shirt off my shoulders, folds it, and sets it on the floor with the pocket face down. The marker copy is folded in that pocket, and she knows it. She doesn't look at it.

Next she pops the snaps of my pearl-snap shirt from her throat to her waist, one at a time, each one a sharp crack in the quiet room. She's bare under it. She folds it and lays it on top of mine. Her nipples draw up hard and dark in the cool air, and gooseflesh rises across her breasts and down her arms.

"Jeans," I tell her. "Stand up to take them off. Kneel back down when you're done."

She stands, unbuttons her jeans, and pushes them down her legs with her underwear. When she kneels again she's naked, and the lamplight falls across her hip and the yellow edge of the old bruise on her ribs.

I don't touch her. I look at her mouth, her breasts, the soft curve of her belly, and the dark curls between her thighs. I look until she flushes from her throat down over her breasts, and I keep looking after that.

Her thighs press together. She makes them part again on her own, and when they open I can see the wet shine between them. She's been wet a while.

"Now mine."

She unbuckles my belt and draws it out of the loops slowly, the leather hissing through each one, just as she's watched me do it. She lays it across my knee.

When she opens my jeans and lowers the zipper, my cock shoves hard against my briefs, right in front of her face. There's already a wet spot darkening the cotton at the head.

"Take me out," I tell her. "Eyes on mine while you do it."

I lift my hips, and she draws my jeans and briefs down my thighs far enough to free me. My cock springs up thick and heavy, the head flushed dark and slick. She wraps her hand around it without looking down. Her palm is warm and a little rough from the barn, and her fingers don't quite close around me.

"You want me in your mouth," I say. "Ask."

"May I, Knox?"

"Hands back on your thighs."

"Yes, Knox." She puts them there.

I slide my hand along her jaw, under her ear and clear of her throat, and bring her mouth down to me.

Her lips part over the head of my cock. Her mouth is hot and wet, and her tongue flattens along the underside and drags slowly up to the ridge. She tastes the bead at the slit and moans, and I feel the sound in my cock all the way down.

I hold her right there, with only the head in her mouth, until she whimpers around it and her eyes go wide and pleading on mine.

After that I feed her more, a little at a time. Her lips stretch wide around me. Her hot mouth slides down my length. When I bump the back of her tongue, I stop and hold her there. Her throat works around the head. She breathes hard through her nose, and her eyes water, and she doesn't pull back an inch.

"That's as far as you go," I tell her. "I decide when you get more."

I move her with my hand on her jaw, slow, in and out. She follows exactly where I take her. Her cheeks hollow every time I draw her back, and her tongue swirls the head before I push her down again. Spit slicks my cock and runs down to my balls. It shines on her chin.

Every time I pull her down, she makes a choked, greedy sound around me. Once, I push my hips up into her mouth, and she moans and takes every bit of it. My thighs go rigid on either side of her, and I'm breathing through my teeth.

When my balls draw up tight, I lift her off me by the jaw. She comes off with a wet pop, her lips swollen and shining. A string of spit breaks between her mouth and my cock.

"Not in your mouth," I tell her. "When I come, I'm coming inside you."