Page 18 of Bringing Home A Cowboy
“I know.”
He studies me for a moment, and then his hand slides up my arm, fingertips trailing warmth. When his thumb brushes my jaw, I lean into it.
“Tell me to stop,” he says.
I don’t. The kiss happens in slow motion, like we’re both afraid of shattering whatever fragile thing we’ve built. His lips taste faintly of coffee and winter air. He deepens it gradually, one hand still cupping my face, the other finding the small of my back. I melt into him before my mind catches up.
Every thought I’ve had about pretending, about what’s temporary and what’s real, dissolves in that single, breath-stealing moment. I don’t remember who stumbles backward first, but we end up pressed against the wall. James’s hands span my back and then my hips, like he can’t decide which part of me he needs closer. I feel the ring’s weight on my finger as I slide my hands up his chest and knot them at his collar. I want to memorize every new inch of him. My fingers trail over the rough stubble along his jaw. My lips feel the heat of his mouth, the way he tastes.
He lifts me—actually lifts me, like I weigh nothing. His hands bracket my thighs, and before I can gasp out a protest he’s carrying me clear across the living room, mouth never leaving mine. I clutch at his shoulders, breath gone, arousal and vertigo braided tight in my gut. The city glides past in a blur until my back bumps the wall and James’s hips lock into mine with a solid, hungry pressure. I laugh into his kiss, the sound muffled between us. He tastes like the end of a dare.
His hand finds the hem of my sweater and I feel the sweep of calloused fingertips against bare skin, the faintest tremble in his hands as he drags the sweater up and off. My arms tangle overhead; I’m giggling into his mouth, messy and helpless, as he tosses it aside and palms my ribs like he’s staking a claim. My bra is black and new and I don’t think I’ve ever cared so much about what I’m wearing in front of a man.
He notices. His grin, slow and a little wild, kills me. “You put this on for me?” he asks, his thumb tracing the lacy edge.
I want to protest — to say of course not. But I catch the reflection in his gaze. He knows. He’s known since the second I let him take my hand at the courthouse and didn’t pull away.
“Maybe I did,” I admit, and his mouth is back on mine. The wall is cold at my back, but James is all heat, the kind that seeps in and soak through every layer of clothing I ever put between myself and the world. He kisses me until my lips are swollen, until I don’t remember anything but the taste of him and the way his hands force my doubts into oblivion.
James pulls his lips away and shifts. Suddenly, I’m airborne and carried again. He walks through the bedroom door like he’s crossing a finish line, not even winded,. He sets me down gently, with the kind of care that makes my ribcage ache, and lets his hands linger at my waist.
I look up. His pupils are blown wide, two black holes with just a rim of green left. I want to say something, break the tension, but nothing sensible forms. My brain is a patchwork of lightning flashes.
He stands above me, hands splayed at my sides, and just studies me. Unhurried. Like he has all the time in the world to memorize a woman like he’s waited years for just this. My face burns under that gaze, but I don’t look away. Instead I raise my chin and rest my hands on his chest, feeling his heart pound through the fabric of his shirt.
He peels it off in one motion, exposing the full, lean landscape of his torso. He is all muscle, dusted with hair, a long pale scar down one side like a stripe on a wild animal. He kneels on the bed beside me and kisses the inside of my wrist and then the edge of my palm, and then the hollow beneath my ear, which makes me shudder. His mouth moves lower, teeth grazing my collarbone, and I realize with something like panic and exhilaration that I have never been undressed like this. Not with the patience of a man who wants to savor every square inchof skin. I have never been the thing a man breathed in like he’d choke if he couldn’t, the thing he steadied with a palm at the hip like a glass about to spill.
He drags his thumb over the top of my bra, down the line of my ribs, tracing my belly, and I watch his knuckles tense with every inch. His hands are strong, practical, but the way he touches me is careful, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he moves too fast. The sensation sparks everywhere at once, lighting up nerves I’d forgotten were there. My body is already arching for more. I hear a sound—high, desperate, half-whimper—and it takes a second to realize it came from me.
He unhooks my bra like he’s done it a thousand times and peels it down my arms. The cups barely clear my shoulders before James’s mouth is on my breast, not rough, but hungry, like he’s been thinking about this since the moment we met and he’s finally allowed to indulge. His stubble grazes the skin, the scrape and then the soft heat of his tongue and lips, and my back arches without conscious thought. He pushes me back from sitting to lying on the bed. I don’t resist.
“James,” I gasp. The word is barely air, but he hears it and looks up for a second, then turns his attention to the other breast. His mouth is hot and urgent, lips closing around my nipple, tongue flicking and teeth threatening but never quite biting. I thread my hands in his hair because it seems like the only thing to do, but my grip turns desperate as he sucks harder, tugging a whimper straight from my torso. I can’t help it
Every nerve in my body is singing, slick and electric with want. He kisses a wet, careful trail down my ribs and belly, pausing at my navel, at the line where my jeans cut across my hips. His breath is hot through the denim. I try to move, to reach for him, but I can’t seem to get enough leverage. He’s got this way of holding me in place, body pinned by his hands and his mouth and the weight of everything I shouldn’t want this much.
He undoes the button of my jeans with a flick of his wrist, and the zipper slides down so slow it’s almost cruel. I lift my hips, and he peels them off, the denim dragging over my legs, leaving me almost naked with nothing left between me and his hands but the damp, lacy slip of my favorite thong. His palm grazes up my thigh, thumb stroking the thin band. He’s not even pretending to play it cool anymore. James looks at me like he wants to devour me. He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he slips two fingers under the waistband and draws a circle at my hipbone, right where the skin is paper-thin and hypersensitive. I tremble so hard it feels like a fever. He watches the tremor start and spread, and it makes him smile, that quiet, private sort of smile, like he’s proud of what he can do to me.
“You okay?” he says, voice low and thick. The words catch at the base of my spine and send another sweep of heat through me.
“Don’t stop,” I manage, not trusting any other words to emerge.
He slips my thong off with both hands, dragging it down my legs in a way that makes me acutely, obscenely aware of how wet I am. I feel peeled open. He raises my legs, bent at the knee and kisses the inside of my thigh. His head bends and his stubble scrapes the inside of my thigh, the softest threat of a beard-burn, and then his mouth parts and I feel his tongue, hot and slick, tracing a line up my leg that ends in a warm, impossibly gentle kiss at the place I am absolutely throbbing for me. His tongue is soft but absolutely certain, a broad, searching stroke that makes me buck off the mattress. It’s not tentative at all. He knows exactly what he’s doing—maybe it’s the cowboy thing, maybe it’s just him. He’s thorough and patient, like he’s memorizing all the ways my body sings.
I lose track of my voice. I’m making sounds I’ve never made before — pleading, broken little gasps, the kind of noisesthat belong behind locked doors and blackout curtains. James doesn’t just go through the motions. His mouth works me like he’s determined to unravel every last little secret I carry. He wants to learn what it takes to make me come apart.
I fist my hands in his hair, rocking against his mouth, and I am not quiet. Not even a little. I’m shaking everywhere, sweat prickling down my sternum, and I can’t tell if the pressure is building or about to snap. Maybe it’s both. I want to hold out, to savor the sensation, but he doesn’t give me an inch of mercy. His tongue circles and flicks, his lips pull me deeper into every pulse. The coil inside me winds tighter than I thought possible, until I’m almost afraid of how much I want it, how badly I need him to finish me, and then I do. My mind blanks out, thighs snapping closed around James’s head while I wring his name out in a voice I barely recognize. My whole body shudders, clenched and sailing, and then I collapse limp on the sheets, blinking hard to remember what planet I’m on. James stays there, face pressed to my thigh, breathing ragged, his arms snug around my hips like he’s not letting go of a goddamn thing in this world.
Chapter 12
James
The taste of her is still on my tongue, a salt-and-sweet honey combination that haunts my lips. Olivia’s hair sprawls over the pillow, a dark, tangled halo. Her face is relaxed in the best way. She looks wrecked, gentle, like I’ve taken her apart. And then she moves suddenly, pushing me to the side.
“My turn, cowboy,” she says. “I still remember my riding lessons.”
Olivia hovers over me and straddles my belly area first. She leans in placing kisses all along my neck, collarbone and torso. Her tits rub against me, tickling and teasing my cock into a rock hard stance … even more so than before. I feel like I want to flip her back over. Claim her right now on this bed. But she wants control of the reins. I’ll give it to her.
I let my hands coast along her thighs, thumb tracing circles on her skin. She’s flushed everywhere, that porcelain glow scattered with pink. Her eyes flick up, pupils blown wide, and the look in them is half challenge, half savoring the moment. I want to devour her whole, but I lie back and let her have her way. I want to see what she’ll do, how far she’ll go.
