Page 34 of Ride Me Cowboy
“Fuck, Beth, if you don’t feel better than anything I’ve ever known,” he growls, the words wrapping around me like a coil.
One of his hands grazes up my back, over my spine, to behind my head, where he laces it in the top of the ponytail, so he can press me forward, against him, not letting me get away from him even a little bit—like I want to, anyhow. His fingers pull at the elastic, releasing my hair, and then his hand cups my head perfectly, while the hand he has on my ass keeps holding me hard against him.
And then, he breaks the kiss, but just for a second, so he can move his mouth to the sensitive skin just beneath my ear, kissing me there first before dragging his mouth lower, to my décolletage, his stubble and the heat of his mouth making my pulse go crazy. The hand he has on my ass moves, and I miss it, but when he brings it to my hip, and flexes slowly higher, to the underside of my breast, I tilt my head back and cry out, because it’s so intimate and so good—nothing though has prepared me for the electric spark that explodes in my body when he brushes his fingertips over one nipple.
The euphoria of this is like sunshine and starlight, all wrapped into one. A super nova of sensation, blinding, overwhelming, making me explode.
From the moment I met him, I could tell he was a take-charge kind of guy and in this respect, I feel his easy authority and confidence wrap right around me, flooding me with a thousand watts of desire. I want to lift up and wrap my legs around his waist. I want to rip his clothes off with my teeth. I want to eathim up. I want him to fuck me hard, to ride me like the cowboy he is.
I just want him, all of him.
The thought splits through me like a dry lightning bolt on a clear night.
Out of nowhere.
A sickening kaleidoscope of images spin, way too fast, through my mind, taunting me and pulling at me, reminding me of how it felt when I first met Christopher, and I mistook absolutely everything about him. How wrong I was about him.
But it’s not just that. Those feelings of confusion are bound with fear, and the number of times Christopher would tell me that I’d always be his. That I’d never get away from him. That he’d chase me through the ends of time if I tried to run. Hurt me, and anyone, I cared about.
He can’t hurt me anymore. I know I’m safe. But at the same time, years of conditioning turn my blood to ice, so even before I know what I’m doing, I’m pushing away from Cole, with a cry ripped from the pit of my belly. Because I’m doing the wrong thing, just like Christopher said. Fear curdles my blood, and I lift a hand to my lips as though I can wipe away the last few minutes.
Cole stares at me, chest moving up and down with each ragged breath he draws, but he stands there, watching me warily, like he’s waiting for me to explain, to say something.
I’ve gone into a panic shutdown though. I recognize this feeling; I’ve known it before.
“I’m so sorry,” I stutter, split between time and place, one half of me back in New York, married to Christopher, terrified ofputting a foot out of line, the other here, on the ranch, tethered to the real world—safe, far from harm.
“I shouldn’t have—that shouldn’t have happened.”
His eyes narrow slightly and that muscle jerks in his jaw, the way it does when he’s thinking hard, or trying to control his feelings, I don’t know which.
“Pretty sure I’ve been sayin’ that,” he responds, voice gruff, but not angry.
“It’s not you.” My words are trembly and my brain is mush, which explains why I blurt out, “It’s me. It’s my—it’s Christopher.”
Something flecks in his eyes, but he stays perfectly still. “And who’s Christopher?”
“My husband,” I say, numb, cold, wrapping my arms around my chest. And then I sob, dropping my head on the harsh reality of that, on the fact that on some level, that’s still how I think of him. Because he made me feel it, every day, that he wouldalways be my husband.That I’d never escape him.
So much for freedom.
I sob again and when I lift my head to explain, Cole is gone. I can’t really say I blame him.
Cole
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, she tasted better than sun-warmed peaches right off the tree. I’m so angry at her for goading me into that, for pushing me, for making it almost impossible to walkaway, but that anger got quickly sidelined by a whole heap of other feelings that are a hell of a lot nicer.
Because kissing Beth was about a thousand kinds of rapture all wrapped into one.
Until it wasn’t.
My husband.
She’s freaking married?
And she’s been here, begging me to kiss her? Flirting with Beau? Or at least, letting him flirt with her?
Hell, I think of myself as a pretty damn good judge of character, but I clearly missed the mark with Beth and I’m not gonna lie, I don’t much like that.
