Page 53 of Ride Me Cowboy

“But you were the oldest. You must have been in charge, right?”

A muscle throbs in his jaw. A tension radiates from him. “I guess so.”

I wonder what he’s thinking. Why that bothers him.

“What happened, with your mom?” I ask and feel the way his hands tighten on the reins, because his whole body tightens around me.

“She had an aneurysm—a brain bleed. It happened pretty quick; there was no real warning.”

“God, Cole, that’s so sad.”

He makes a noise that I take to be of agreement. We ride without speaking for a while. Rowdy’s hooves make thudding sounds against the hardened paths that scramble over the property, and the night birds sing their beautiful songs for us. Even the trees seem to be whispering, their long branches brushing in the gentle evening breeze. Cole pulls on the reins and Rowdy takes a different path, casually beginning to trot up a hill.

“I love it out here,” he says, voice raw, right against me, so I feel his words pulse through my core, into the deepest parts of me. “Don’t think I can see myself ever living anywhere else.”

I can’t imagine what it’s like to feel that. Such an intense and obvious connection to the landscape, a contentment born of knowing you’re just exactly where you’re meant to be. I don’t think I’ve ever known anything like it. I’ve just taken my surroundings for granted. It was a part of me, because it had to be.

Not like this.

“It’s very beautiful,” I agree, though it feels like such an insufficient way to describe this place. It’s overwhelmingly rugged, and has the kind of beauty that wraps right around you and holds on tight.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget this,” I say. “How clear the night sky is, the stars, the smell of the trees, the feeling of the cool breeze after such a sweltering hot day. All of it.”This.

“I’m glad you came out here, Beth,” he says, and now, when his words brush against my cheek, I don’t think it’s just because of us sitting so close in the saddle. I think it’s because he’s right there, his lips just a hair’s breadth from my skin. “I’m real glad you’re here.”

My heart gallops. One of his hands drops from the reins and moves to my thigh, just brushing it gently, like he’s sounding me out. Seeing how I feel.

“Cole…” his name is throttled by a thickness in my throat.

His hand moves higher up my thigh, and I drag in a deep, shaky breath, my whole body catching fire as he lets his fingers rest there, high on my leg. I’m frozen, at first, with the sheer force of effort I’m making to will him to touch me more, touch me closer. Belatedly, I realize, I can do more than just wish him to act. I can act myself. I can move.

And so, I do. At first, it’s just a simple relaxation of my body, against his, and then, I curve one of my hands over his, pulling at it until he lets me guide it toward my lips and hold it there.

His chest moves quickly with his intake of breath, but then, his other hand sweeps my hair over one shoulder, and his mouth is pressed to the bare skin of nape he’s exposed.

I groan, everything inside of me bursting into hyper light. “Cole,” I say again, but with urgency now, because he’s stoking something inside me I can’t fathom, can’t ignore. “God, Cole,” I shiver against him, and his hand on my thigh begins to move again, brushing deliciously close to my sex, so I squirm on the saddle in a desperate plea, but he moves it past anyway, over my hips, lifting the lightweight linen of my shirt to touch my bare skin. It’s just the smallest contact, but every part of me explodes.I writhe properly now, needing this, and so much more. He trails his fingers across my stomach, little lines and swirls, as his mouth moves over my shoulder, kissing me there, making my whole body overheat.

“The first time I saw you, all I could think was that you didn’t belong here,” he says, as he brings his hand higher, brushing the underside of my breast, so I tremble even when his words are so at odds with the way he’s making me feel. “But I was wrong. You suit here, Beth. Like you were made for this.”

His praise soaks into me like butter on warm bread. I tilt my head back a little, and then, his hand is cupping my breast, holding it at first, like he’s trying to memorize the shape, before his fingers move, digging into me with just the right pressure, holding me back against him, pulling at my nipples until I’m moaning beneath that star-lit sky—the ancient witness to this treachery and release. I’m not capable of recognising it right now but there’s something almost ceremonial about the way this is happening, like I’m being born again out here, with Cole guiding me toward a life after Christopher.

He drops the reins and his other hand pushes under my shirt, moving with urgency, fast, desperate, like now that he’s started touching me, he can’t stop. I whimper, because I need so much more than this.

As though he understands that, the fingers of one hand trail down my stomach, toward the line of my jeans, pushing at the button.

“Okay?” he asks against my ear, so I moan something resembling:

“God, yes, please,” even when I don’t know exactly what I’m agreeing to, only knowing that I will do anything with this man, go anywhere with him, in this moment.

He unfastens my belt, my zip, then slides his hands inside my pants, against my skin, my sex, his fingers brush over me and it feels so damn good the second he touches my clit I can’t help but cry out, the sound splitting through the silence of the night.

His laugh is throaty, and so damn sexy. “Good girl,” he say, in that deep, gruff way of his. “I like hearing you.”

“Well, keep it up,” I pant, “and you’ll hear a lot more.”

“I intend to,” he promises, and his fingers move faster, until I can hardly bear what he’s doing to me. My breasts, my clit, my damned shoulder: everywhere he touches feels like it might explode.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop,” I beg.

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