Page 99 of Knotting the Cowboys

His fingers trail whisper-light along my bare shoulder, following the delicate lace strap. The touch is barely there, but it sends lightning down my spine.

"You look," he says, voice dropped to a register that vibrates in my bones, "like the most wanted dessert that I'd gladly devour."

The words should sound silly, maybe even cheesy.

But the way he says them—rough and honest and hungry—makes my knees weak. He leans in, and I watch his chest expand as he takes a deliberate, deep inhale. His exhale comes out as a growl, low and primal, the sound of an Alpha catching the scent of an Omega in heat.

Goosebumps race across my skin, and I can't contain the needy whimper that escapes.

My body recognizes that sound, responds to it on a cellular level. Every nerve ending lights up, and I feel myself getting wetter, the borrowed panties no match for the slick beginning to gather.

River's hands clench at his sides like he's physically holding himself back. But his eyes—his eyes devour every inch of exposed skin, lingering on the swell of my breasts, the dip of my waist, the barely-there fabric that pretends to cover my pussy.

"Dandelion," he murmurs, and my name has never sounded so much like a promise.

River moves closer still, each inch of diminished space making my breath catch, until I can feel the heat radiating from his body without quite touching. His head dips, and I tense, expecting his mouth on mine. Instead, his lips find the curve where my neck meets shoulder, barely a brush of contact that somehow sets every nerve alight.

"So soft," he murmurs against my skin, the words vibrating through me. His lips trail up, mapping the column of my throat with reverent pressure. Each kiss is deliberate, controlled, but I can feel the restraint thrumming through him in the careful placement of his hands—still at his sides, still not grabbing me the way his eyes promise he wants to.

When he reaches my collarbone, he pauses. His tongue darts out, tasting the hollow there, and my knees actually buckle. Only pride keeps me upright, that and the wall at my back.

"Can I..." His voice is wrecked, barely more than a rasp. He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, and the hunger there makes my stomach clench. "Can I have a glimpse of what it'll be like to appease you?"

The formal words contrast with the raw need in his delivery.Appease me.Like I'm something divine requiring tribute, not a half-naked mess in borrowed lingerie who can barely remember her own name under his attention.

I try to form words, but his hooded gaze pins me in place. Those green eyes are more black than color now, focused on me with an intensity that makes me hyperaware of everything. The lace scratching against oversensitive nipples. The changingroom's recycled air moving across too much bare skin. The way my pussy throbs in time with my heartbeat, already so wet I can feel it beginning to coat my inner thighs.

"Willa." He lifts one hand—finally, finally touching with intent—and his fingers catch my chin, tilting my face up. His thumb traces my bottom lip, the same lip he bit in the boutique's main room. The memory makes me shiver. "I need to hear your words, Dandelion. You can use them, yes?"

It's gentle but firm, making sure I'm present, I'm choosing, I'm not just swept along by hormones and proximity.

The care in it, the way he waits despite the obvious strain of holding back, breaks something open in my chest.

"Yes," I whisper, then clearer: "I want..." The words tangle, too many wants crowding my throat. Want his hands, his mouth, his weight pressing me into the wall. Want to know what sounds he makes when control finally snaps. Want to be claimed and cherished and—"I want a glimpse of him...of us."

The pronoun shift matters.

Not just him but us, acknowledging what we could be together. His thumb presses slightly against my lip as his breathing roughens.

"Fuck, the things you say." He moves then, decisive and sure. One hand cups my face while the other finds my hip, and he walks me backward the two steps to the opposite wall. My back hits the cool surface and I gasp at the contrast—cold wall, hot Alpha, my burning skin caught between.

His mouth finds mine with none of the earlier restraint. This kiss is hungry, possessive, years of want condensed into the slide of lips and shared breath.

He kisses like he's trying to crawl inside me, like he can somehow imprint himself on my soul through pressure and need alone.

My hands fly to his shoulders, clutching at his shirt as he angles my head where he wants it. His tongue traces the seam of my lips and I open immediately, eager for more of his taste—pine and coffee and something uniquely River that makes my head spin.

He makes a sound—approval or relief or pure want—and deepens the kiss. His hand slides from my jaw to circle my throat, not squeezing but holding, pinning me in place with gentle authority. The possession in it, the careful control, makes me whimper into his mouth.

"That's it," he murmurs against my lips before diving back in. His tongue tangles with mine, teaching me the rhythm he likes, coaxing responses I didn't know I could make. Each slide and retreat builds heat between us until I'm panting, gasping for air he won't quite let me have.

River makes a raw, inhuman noise when I experiment—delicately, then with daring—by sucking his tongue into my mouth. His whole body jolts like a live wire. The hand gripping my hip spasms, fingers digging in so hard I anticipate the shape of his grasp lasting days. It’s half caution tape, half claim. All I can think is how right it feels, how every inch of me wants to bruise under him, to be marked and remembered even after the high of this moment fizzles out. He presses forward with his body, closing whatever molecular gap remained between us, and I gasp into his mouth, hyperaware of the thick ridge of him—hard and eager, boxed behind his jeans, less a suggestion and more a geometric inevitability.

I want to tell him he’s making me dizzy, but I can’t remember vocabulary. His free hand comes up to cradle the back of my head, threading into my hair, and suddenly I’m short-circuited: there’s nowhere to look but his eyes, nowhere to breathe but his oxygen. I feel the slick heat gathering between my thighs, wetness pooling so quickly it’s obscene, and some feral part ofme catalogs it as evidence—proof that I’m as gone for him as he is for me.

He pulls back just enough to speak, his lips still grazing mine. “You have no idea what you do to me.” The words are low, like he’s ashamed of needing to say them, but the rest of him doesn’t get the message. His thumb strokes just under my jaw, gentling the restraint on my throat, and my pulse hammers against his touch.

“I think I do,” I whisper, voice breaking on the inhale. Every sound in the dressing room is magnified. The soft rasp of his breath, the animal hush when he noses my cheek, the way our bodies align in a language more ancient than words. I’m throbbing with want, every inch of skin desperate for friction, for another taste of him.

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