One afternoon she found him in the barn, organizing tools. The space was dim and quiet, and when she appeared in the doorway, he straightened slowly, watching her approach.
“How’s it going?” she asked, stopping closer than necessary.
“Good.” His voice was rougher than usual. “Almost done here.”
“You’re a hard worker.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Earl says you’re picking things up fast.”
“I try to pay attention.” His eyes dropped to her mouth, then back up. “To what needs doing.”
The air between them felt charged, heavy with unspoken want. Rachel’s heart raced as she realized how easy it would be to close the distance, to touch him…
“I should let you finish,” she said, stepping back.
She walked away on shaking legs, feeling his gaze burning into her back.
That night she lay awake, her body aching with a need she hadn’t felt in years. She imagined Jack’s hands on her, his mouth, his body pressed against hers, his cock inside her. The fantasy left her breathless, her fingers slipping beneath cotton sheets, finding her wet pussy lips between her thighs. Her back arched, teeth sinking into her lower lip to trap the sounds rising in her throat as waves of pleasure crashed through her body, leaving her trembling in the empty expanse of the bed.
__________
By early February, the tension between them had become almost unbearable. Jack was wound tight as a spring, his eyes following Rachel constantly with barely restrained hunger. She’d see him adjust himself when he thought she wasn’t looking, see the strain in his jaw when she stood close. Once she deliberately dropped her pen in front of him and bent to retrieve it giving him a good view of her cleavage. When she straightened, the look on his face, raw, desperate need, made her knees weak again and she knew she would make herself cum that night as she was doing more frequently now.
Rachel wasn’t much better. She found herself choosing her dresses more carefully each morning, the ones that showed off her figure. At thirty-eight, her body was different than it had been at twenty — broader in the shoulders from farm work, stronger in the legs — but her waist was still narrow, her stomach flat, and her breasts were ripe and large. The physical labor kept her fit, and she could see in Jack’s eyes that he appreciated every curve.
She’d catch herself staring at him too. At the way his shoulders moved under his shirts. At his hands, strong, capable hands that she couldn’t stop imagining on her body. At the way his jeans fit his narrow hips.
Earl noticed, of course. One morning he caught her watching Jack haul equipment, and the old man just shook his head with a knowing look.
“Careful,” was all he said.
But Rachel was past careful. She was past sensible. The wanting had become a physical ache, a constant hum beneath her skin. And from the way Jack looked at her, like she was water and he was dying of thirst, she knew he felt it too.
__________
February 14th dawned cold and clear. Earl had the day off to visit his sister, leaving Rachel and Jack alone on the farm. They both knew what the day meant, the charged significance of it hanging between them like a promise.