Page 56 of Christmas with the Cowgirl
“Yeah, it was.I didn’t even think about it until now.”
“No disease, either,” she said.
“Ditto.Not that I thought about that, either,” he admitted.“I was…all tangled up.”
“Tangled up?”
“In wanting you,” he said simply, relieved that he wasn’t going to have to call a halt to this crazy ride because he’d been too stupid to prepare.
She reached up then and cupped the side of his face.Just that light touch of her fingers sent his pulse racing.“I suddenly know the feeling.And it’s not one I’m used to.”
“Me, either, believe it or not.I…it’s been a while.A long while.”
“So Jackson told me.”He blinked.She and Jackson had talked about him…about that?“He told me you were not a player.That if anything you have a rep for being the opposite.”
Thanks, bro.
If there was one thing he learned in the next few minutes, it was that once Riley Garrett made up her mind, there was no holding back.For every kiss he gave her, in every spot, she returned the favor.He’d already been wound up, but the feel of her lips moving down the side of his neck as her fingers stroked the skin under his shirt seared through him like wildfire.
And suddenly he didn’t care about anything except that fire, stoking it, building it, and if it burst out of control he didn’t care about that, either.
*
She’d forgotten howbeautiful a man could be.
It had been so long.But Riley knew it wasn’t only that.It was that Miles was a stellar example.And as she helped him shed their clothes, every inch revealed—including several vital ones—kicked her pulse up another notch.She’d swear it also heated her blood, because she felt as if she were on fire.
She was aching in places she’d almost forgotten existed.But even stranger, he seemed to sense those places somehow and was caressing them, stroking them, and then sending her breath rocketing out of her by kissing them.She heard his whispered words, dizzy though she was, and that he sounded as awed as she felt was the final torch needed to light the conflagration.Suddenly nothing, absolutely nothing else mattered.She wanted this man in every way she could think of.And more, she wanted to make him feel as she was feeling now, as if she owed him that because he’d awakened every nerve ending in her body.
And when at last he made that move, the sheer slickness of his entry told her how utterly ready she was.He filled her, stretched her, and the low, harsh groan he let out as he slid home told her all she needed to know.They clung, clawed, and gripped each other, him driving forward, her arching up to meet him, until she couldn’t, didn’t want to, hold back any longer.With a cry unlike any she’d ever made before she let go.She didn’t know how long it was that sensations she’d never felt before rippled through her.It felt both too short, and as if it were a wave she could ride forever.And the harsh moan of her name he let out as he pulsed inside her sent her flying all over again in a final wash of sensation.
And as she let out a final, wondering breath of pleasure at the feel of him shuddering in her arms, she realized she’d never really known before what this was supposed to be like.
What it was supposed to be.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Riley could notremember ever feeling so relaxed.Of course, after being wound up so many times this weekend, thanks to the man holding her now, it wasn’t a big surprise.
She stretched, feeling a bit more than decadent in the big bed in the luxurious room.“Remind me to thank Nic…if I ever leave this place,” she said lazily.
“I was thinking maybe a bushel of mistletoe.Not that she needs any encouragement to be kissing Jackson.”
Riley smiled so widely at that she figured she must look like the proverbial Cheshire cat.Not only at the silly words, but at the way she could feel him talking, he was holding her so closely.
“I think I understand,” she said.“Finally.”
“And I think I,” Miles said, lifting his head just enough to give her yet another kiss, “finally understand the true breadth and scope of the Last Stand grapevine.”
She giggled at that, and inwardly marveled at herself.Her, giggling?She hadn’t done that since…well, what she called the dark ages, the age when Derek had destroyed every expectation she’d ever had.
And now this man was building her new ones.
She thought she’d save that text Nic had sent Saturday morning forever.Maybe she’d even print it out and frame it.
You vanished.Miles vanished.The grapevine says you left together, and you didn’t head home.So wherever you two are, stay there.Jackson and I will cover for you at the ranch for the weekend.
She’d sent back a simple heart, knowing that would answer it all.
