Page 45 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

This was his bedroom. She was his wife.

So she didn’t ask him for permission. She reached over and helped herself to the wall of his chest, running her palms up and getting to work on the buttons of his shirt so that when he shrugged off his jacket, she could push his shirt off with it.

And she let out a sound of wonder, because he was everything that she’d imagined, and more. She’d had a sense of him, of course. She’d pushed his shirt out of the way in the woods, adhering to the no-clothes-off rule in theory more than fact, but it was something else entirely to stare at him with the light coming in from outside and get to see the entirety of the man’s unbelievably chiseled torso.

“Turn around,” he told her.

And when she didn’t rush to obey him because she was having far too much fun looking at him, he laughed a little and turned her around himself. Cat felt his hands at her neck, then at the back of her dress, unzipping it and letting the fabric fall to the floor.

Wilder didn’t let her turn back around. He pulled her toward him, one hand going around to hold her at the waist and that big, wide hand of his that had already brought her unimaginable amounts of pleasure out in the woods sliding around to rest almost benignly between her belly button and the part that wanted him most.

He kissed along her neck, holding her flush against the heat of his body, and all she could do was shiver and sigh and break out in goose bumps, everywhere.

When he finally turned her around and settled her on the side of the bed, he knelt down, pulled her legs over his wide shoulders, and bent to taste her.

It wasn’t the first time that she’d felt his mouth on her like this, but it was different. She wasin his bed. She was hiswife.

And, finally, this was the appetizer instead of the full meal.

Maybe that thought alone was what made her shatter almost immediately. He laughed there against the heat of her body, then kissed his way up, ridding her of the white panties she’d worn in celebration.

Then groaning, because she still wasn’t wearing a bra.

“I love how obsessed you are with the fact I don’t wear bras that often,” she said, arching into his touch.

“Not as much as I love that you don’t,” he replied.

He showed her exactly what he meant, until she was crying out all over again. Because he was magic. The things he could do with his mouth and his hands and oh, she was lost.

Every new touch was a new way to lose herself, a new revelation.

Wilder pushed back and finally stripped off the rest of his clothes. And for a moment, they both sat there and stared at each other, as if struck by the glory of this the same way. At the same time.

“I didn’t really believe that I was going to get to see you naked,” she whispered.

He only smiled, but it was a deeply wicked, magical kind of smile that seemed to set every nerve in her body on fire, and then he leaned over and picked her up again. He settled her more in the middle of the bed and she wondered if the storm in her body might wipe her out altogether when he found his way to her once more.

“Cat,” he began, in that way he did when he was about to make pronouncements that she was almost certainly not going to like.

“Yes, I know it will probably hurt,” she said impatiently. “Yes, I know it’s very unlikely that it will be good for me, too. Yes, I know—”

“You don’t know much, apparently.” He shook his head. “We’re going to do our best to make sure it barely hurts at all. And you can trust and believe that it will be more thangood for you.” He rolled his eyes as if the very idea that it could be awkward in any way was ridiculous. “What I was going to ask you is whether or not you were on birth control, or if you wanted me to handle it.”

“Oh.” She felt silly again. “Uh… no, I’m not. Though Ramona and I did discuss it. And depending…”

How was she supposed to have this conversation? Then again, as Ramona had pointed out to her, if she couldn’t have a conversation about sex she probably shouldn’t be having sex. And in theory that made sense. But staring at Wilder’s absurd male beauty while every single part of her was rioting to get closer to him, she could see why people maybe jumped a step or two.

“There are good options, depending on our plans,” she said diplomatically, because this didn’t seem like the moment to bring up babies. Not when what she wanted was some practice in the making of them first.

“I got it,” he told her.

Then he settled in beside her, pulled her over his body so she was astride him, and kissed her.

Then kept kissing her, lazily. Slowly. Even though she could feel that huge, hard part of him between them, so hot it was like electricity spun off everywhere.

Still, he made no move to do anything but kiss her.

As if they really were back out in the truck and he had no intention of taking this further.

---