Page 69 of Ride Me Cowboy
She feels so damn good, like every part of her has been waiting for me, all her damned life. I run my thumb across her lower lip as I drive into her and she bites the pad of my flesh, which is the last thing to tip me over into my own surrender.
I swear and then curse her name, as I hold myself buried inside of her, staring down into her face as a wave of desire and need wrap around me and spill my seed from my body, in a cataclysmic, elemental release that almost knocks me sideways.
I can’t catch my breath, and I don’t care. My lungs burn, and I stay like this, on top of this incredible woman, staring down at her, buried inside of her, our pleasure completely unanimous, our need, for right now at least, exhausted.
Chapter Twenty
Beth
“YOU OKAY, City Girl?” He sounds concerned as he stares at my naked body. I look at him, then at my chest. The moon is high and full, bathing us in a silver glow. I can see pink patches on my skin, from his hands, his mouth, his stubble.
I nod once, but it doesn’t seem to assuage his concerns.
He draws me to his chest, holding me. “I meant to be gentle.”
I glance up at him, confused. My breath is still coming in fits and spurts. I feel totally overwhelmed by everything we just did, everything I just felt. I don’t even know how to put that into words.
“What you did was perfect.” He doesn’t look convinced. “Cole, I’m not made of glass.”
“But you’ve been hurt.”
“By someone who wanted to hurt me. It’s different.”
“I want you to feel safe with me.”
“Believe me, I do. That’s the only reason I’m out here, enjoying what we just did. I trust you.” I frown then, because I feel like the sentiment has to be clarified, the nuance of my trust explained. “I mean, I trust that we can have sex, that you’re not the kind of guy who gets off on making a woman suffer. I trust you in that sense. I don’t mean I trust you, like I want to…trust you with anything more, if you know what I mean.”
His brow furrows, and I don’t blame him. That didn’t exactly come out like I intended.
“Like, I’ll never actually trust anyone again, in terms of wanting to be in a couple or whatever. The whole give and take, and blindly walking side by side that a relationship involves. That’s a hard no from me, for always. But this…what we just did, I’m okay with it. More than okay. It was…everything I needed.”
He nods slowly, yet still looks contemplative, as though he’s thinking things he doesn’t know how to say.
“Does that bother you?”
“Frankly, yeah, a little.”
“Why?”
“I hate the thought of you letting that bastard dictate the rest of your life.”
I shrug. “Same. But that’s just the way it is.”
“You think it has to be?”
“Yes,” I say, pushing up on one elbow, so I can see him better. “I thought you understood that about me. I’m not looking for anything more from you.”
“I’m not offering more,” he says, so quickly I feel like it’s as ingrained to him as it’s become in me. “I’m not talking about me, Beth. I’m talking about someone else, down the road, when these wounds of yours have had time to heal over properly.”
“They’ll never heal,” I say, my voice cold, and weighed down by certainty. “I’ve accepted that. What he did, the trust he destroyed, the way I lived…I will never risk that happening again. I’m the only person I ever intend to rely on.”
He nods. “I get why you feel that way.”
It’s not exactly an agreement. I feel as though there’s more he wants to say, but he lets it go, and I’m glad. I’m pretty sure we both know where we stand, what this is. How long it will last.
I lie there with my head on his chest, listening to the beating of his heart, looking up at the stars above us. They are so sparkly out here, the sky so dark, it takes this city girl’s breath away, each and every time.
I delight in running my fingers over the skin on his chest, feeling the hair-roughened flesh, the ridges of his abdomen, the muscles, the warmth. One point of difference I can’t help reflecting on, between Cole and Christopher, is that Cole is the biggest, strongest guy I’ve known in real life. He could hurt just about anyone, easily, but he doesn’t need to flex his muscles like that. His real strength comes from inside, from knowing who he is; from having a strong moral compass, and a desire to do good.
