Page 193 of Knotting the Cowboys

His hand slides down my body, over the swell of my belly, pausing just above where I need him most. Our eyes lock, and in his I see the last thread of his restraint.

"I'll take care of you," he promises, and then his fingers find my center, sliding through the slick with a reverence that makes me sob. "So wet for me already. Your body knows what it needs, doesn't it?"

I can only nod, words lost as he explores with medical precision combined with alpha instinct. He finds my clit with his thumb while two fingers press inside, curling to hit that spot that makes me see stars. My hips buck against his hand, chasing the pressure, the friction, the promise of relief.

"That's it," he encourages, adding a third finger when I clench around him. "Take what you need. I've got you."

But I need more. The emptiness goes deeper than his fingers can reach, demanding something only an alpha can provide. I pull at his sleep pants with clumsy hands, whimpering when I finally free him. He's hard and thick, precum already beading at the tip, and the sight makes my mouth water.

"Please," I whisper, guiding him to where I need him. "Austin, please. I need you inside me."

He enters me in one smooth thrust, and the relief is so profound I nearly cry. This is what my body's been screaming for—the stretch, the fullness, the perfect friction as he startsto move. Each thrust sends shockwaves through my system, pleasure building on pleasure until I can't tell where I end and he begins.

"Perfect," he groans against my neck, his usual gentle rhythm giving way to something more primal. "You feel perfect. Taking me so well."

His words push me higher, along with the snap of his hips and the way he angles to hit that spot inside me with each thrust. When his thumb finds my clit again, circling with just the right pressure, I shatter. The orgasm rips through me like lightning, every muscle clenching as waves of pleasure crash over me again and again.

He follows me over, my name on his lips as he pulses inside me. For a moment, the heat retreats, satisfied by this first coupling. We lie tangled together, breathing hard, his weight carefully balanced to avoid my belly.

"Better?" he asks, pressing soft kisses to my temple.

"For now," I admit, already feeling the heat beginning to build again in my bones. "But?—"

"I know," he soothes, not moving from inside me yet. "This is just the beginning. But we'll get you through this. All of us. Together."

The door opens quietly, but in my hypersensitive state, it might as well be thunder.

River's scent—petrichor and sun-warmed hay—mingles with the thick arousal already permeating my nest. Through heavy-lidded eyes, I watch him take in the scene: Austin and me still joined, sweat cooling on our skin, the rumpled disaster of my bedding.

"Started without me?" River's voice carries that easy calm he uses with skittish horses, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his nostrils flare as my heat scent hits him fullforce. His eyes darken from warm brown to something deeper, older, as they track over my flushed skin.

Austin stirs against me, pressing a kiss to my shoulder before carefully withdrawing. The loss makes me whimper, that empty ache already returning despite the orgasm he gave me minutes ago. My body doesn't care about recovery time or rational thought—it only knows there's an emptiness that needs filling, a burning that needs quenching.

"She's deep in it," Austin tells River quietly, helping me settle against the pillows when I try to follow his movement. "The blockers failed completely. Temperature's elevated but not dangerous. She's coherent, just..."

"Needy," I finish for him, not even embarrassed by the truth of it. My hands reach for both of them, trying to keep Austin close while drawing River nearer. "Please don't go."

Austin catches my hand, bringing it to his lips. "Just going to clean up and rest, sweetheart. River's going to take care of you now." He glances at River with something like relief mixed with reluctance. "She needs more than I can give right now."

"I've got her," River assures him, already moving closer to the bed. "Go. Eat something. Hydrate. We're going to need stamina for this."

Austin leaves with one last kiss to my forehead, and then it's just River and me and the weight of need pressing against my skin. He doesn't rush to touch me, though. Instead, he moves around my room with quiet purpose, adjusting the fairy lights to cast softer shadows, opening the window just enough to let in fresh air without chilling the space.

"River," I protest, shifting restlessly against the damp sheets. "I need?—"

River’s lips curve into the tiniest smile, as if he’s reading my mind—or at least tracking every tremor of want in my skin. There’s a steadiness about him that somehow sharpens thefrantic edge of my heat even as it soothes. Like the eye of a storm; peaceful, but only because he’s holding back winds strong enough to tear the house apart.

He’s not in any hurry. No, not River. He disappears into the shadows near my dresser, and for a moment I’m writhing in the sheets, half-mad with the certainty that if he doesn’t touch me soon, I might actually combust. But instead of climbing onto the bed, he produces something unexpected—a mirror, its edges filigreed with tarnished silver and wild rose motifs that probably predate the house itself. It’s heavy, the kind of artifact that could shatter a skull or become a family heirloom depending on how it’s wielded.

He moves deliberately, setting the mirror at the foot of the bed, angling its surface with the grave precision of a surgeon or a jeweler. He tucks an old book beneath one edge until the glass faces me exactly—a full, unbroken line of sight from the pillows, where I’m sprawled and still catching my breath, straight down the length of my own body.

At first I don’t understand. My mind is too fogged with pheromones and pain and want, all the desperate little signals my body keeps firing. But then I see the setup: River, shirt off, jaw tense, hands planting firmly on the quilt. Me, flushed to the collarbones, hair wild around my face, lips swollen from Austin’s kisses. And soaked through, dark wet on white sheets—evidence of heat and need, almost embarrassing if I weren’t too needy to care.

He sits beside me on the edge of the mattress, one leg folded up beneath him, the other braced on the floor like he might need to ground himself against the undertow. He doesn’t touch me yet. Instead, he leans forward, arms loose across his thighs, and watches the way I watch myself in the glass.

"Take a look," he says, soft but inflexible, and I do. I see myself as he does—a body made for wanting, wanting him.My skin goosepimpled despite the sweat, eyes huge and dark, mouth parted around a helpless, keening sound I didn’t know I was making. My whole being a signal fire, visible down every backroad of Sweetwater County.

"You ever get to see yourself like this?" River asks, not waiting for an answer. "I want you to—really see, Willa. Not just what you feel. See."

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