Page 46 of Knotting the Cowboys

"Besides," he says, his voice dropping into that register that bypasses my brain and speaks directly to my hindbrain, "we gotta finish training with the Boss of Cactus Ranch first."

The words are casual, directed at Wendolyn, but his thumb strokes once along the inseam of my jeans. The touch is lightning through my system, making me bite back a gasp.

Boss. He called me Boss, but the way his hand claims my thigh suggests something far different from professional hierarchy.

"Of course," I manage, proud when my voice comes out steady. "Training first."

Inside, I'm anything but steady.

His hand is a brand through the denim, each point of contact sending signals my body receives loud and clear. My thighs want to part, to invite more than this careful touch.

My breath wants to catch, to let him know exactly what he's doing to me.

But I hold still, grateful for the millionth time this week that I invested in scent-blocking underwear.

The expensive kind that actually works, keeping my arousal from perfuming the air with obvious need.

Don’t need my horny business spreading through town.

I have a feeling Wendolyn wouldn’t spread the word, but small towns are known for their gossip, so I can’t be contributing to it when I’ve just arrived.

Wendolyn chatters on about horses and schedules, blissfully unaware of the tension crackling in the front seats. Or maybe she's not unaware—maybe she's giving us the gift of background noise, a buffer against the weight of Cole's touch and what it means.

His fingers flex slightly, not quite a squeeze but enough to remind me they're there.

As if I could forget.

As though every nerve ending in my body isn't currently rerouting to that five-inch span of contact.

The truck rumbles on toward town, but all I can focus on is the heat of his palm, the careful control in how he holds me—firm enough to claim, gentle enough not to frighten.

This is what I was afraid of.

Not them, but this—my body's eager betrayal, the way it responds to the slightest provocation.

Cole's hand on my thigh shouldn't feel so at home with such a possessive touch, but it does.

It shouldn’t make me want to crawl into his lap and find out if his control extends to other activities…but it does.

I dare to envision what could happen if I surrendered to the moment—if my hand crept just an inch to the left, brushing the back of his knuckles, inviting all that heat and promise to slide higher and stake its claim.

I imagine the windows fogging up with our breathing, bodies angled awkwardly in the bucket seats, denim and cotton stretching and giving way under the press of palms and mouths, and the world beyond the windshield blurring into irrelevance.

If it was just the two of us and no highway, no chaperone Omega in the backseat, no self-imposed rules or broken glass memories… If it was only Cole’s hand on my thigh and the thick thrum of his voice rumbling in my ear, saying my name like it was a password or a prayer.

The fantasy is so vivid it almost aches…

A split-second reel of him pulling over on some gravel turnout, the truck idling in the hush, and me climbing over the console to straddle his lap, legs shaking, lips parted and hungry. I’d kiss him bruising and desperate, wanting to see if he’d lose that legendary self-control for once, if he’d pin me with all that slow-burning Alpha force and leave marks where no one else could see. In the fantasy, he’s greedy and gentle all at once, and I’m bold—bolder than I’ve ever been—untanglingevery knot of caution and letting my body decide what happens next.

And I know he’d take it slow, even if I begged for fast. He’d treat me like something wild and half-healed, and I’d hate how much I loved it, how much I wanted someone to see me as vulnerable and precious instead of just convenient or needy. I want to be seen, claimed, chosen for something beyond my fragile usefulness—a wanting so raw it trembles in my bones.

But when I snap back to reality, the lines are too clear, the distance too wide.

We’re not alone.

There’s a schedule, a destination, a façade to maintain, and beneath it all, the faint terror that if I let slip even an ounce of that need, it would devour me whole and leave nothing recognizable behind.

So I keep my hands to myself and pretend the world is all fences and sky, that the open road is enough to soothe the restless creature clawing at my insides. I try not to think about the way Cole’s thumb is drawing figure-eights on my jeans, or how every nerve in my leg is screaming for more, or how if he told me to pull over and get in the back seat, I’d do it with zero hesitation and never look back.

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