“Oh my God!” I cry out softly, the only words I can manage to form.
Everything else has become this perfect surge of desire. Nothing else matters. My body tightens, clutching him inside me. Forcing me to clasp a hand over my mouth to stifle my scream. My entire body throbs and quakes as another orgasm rips through me even harder than the first, pushing me closer and closer to levels I never knew were possible.
“I can’t hold out much longer,” Jamie groans out, gripping my hips as he thrusts once, twice, and then a final time. Shuddering, calling my name in a low, urgent voice, over and over.
Falling onto the bed beside him, my breath comes out heavily matching his. There’s a lingering soreness between my thighs that aches when I move, but I feel so good that I laugh again and press my face to his naked shoulder.
“What’s so funny?” he demands, twisting to his side with amusement in his tone.
Snuggling closer, I can’t contain the smile on my face. “I’m just so…happy. That’s all.”
Our first time was magic, just like I’d always expected it to be, but it was also much faster than I’d imagined. Like fire to a puddle of gasoline, our bodies had ignited. I trail my finger down his collarbone then rest my hand flat on his tight, muscled chest.
“I want every night to be like this,” I tell him. “Only not having to be worried my parents will overhear us.”
We’ve talked about getting married, but I’m supposed to go off to NYU in the fall for school. And Jamie’s dad wants him to work for the family rodeo. We’ve been circling this without ever talking about it, without giving each other a firm answer about what we’re planning.
“Me too,” he says. “I want to be with you, that’s all I know.”
I take in a deep, sudden breath, wishing I could just flat out ask him what he’s planning to do so I can decide if I want to go away to school, like my mom says I should, or if I should stick closer to home the way my dad says he’d like me to do.
Neither one of us wants to disappoint our families. But where does that leave us? I hate that our first time having sex could be soured by this discussion.
I kiss him again, letting it linger this time. Swiping my tongue over his lips until he opens for me. Jamie fists my hair at the base of my skull, holding me as tight as he holds the reins when he’s riding. My body wakes up, craving him even more than ever.
“Again,” I whisper into the kiss.
Jamie’s chuckle is rough. “Greedy girl.”
“For you,” I promise. “Only you.”
It’s slower this time. Better. He’s on top of me, his length stroking inside me, rubbing my sensitive bud with every thrust until I come undone again, bright sparkles bursting through me. Gasping his name, I swear I can feel him throb inside me as he finishes.
“All I know is that I love you, Oakley Montgomery. Wherever we go, whatever we do, that’s never going to change. I’m going to be with you.” He replies so calmly that I know he means every word.
I hold up my hand, pinky out, as his eyes widen slightly and a smirk litters the corner of his lips before he hooks his pinky around mine. “Promise me, I promise you, that to you, I will be true.”
It’s our silly little freshman rhyme from when we were just best friends and not a couple. But it has even more meaning now. My heart thumps. The tears I feel in my eyes are happy and content, not sad.
“Shit, that’s your dad,” he says suddenly. The sound of heavy boots thumps in the hallway.
In what feels like seconds, Jamie’s dressed, one long leg hanging over the windowsill as I pull on my robe and kiss him goodbye before quickly closing the window with just enough time to turn around before my dad knocks on the door, causing my heart to jump.
That was close… A little too fucking close. But no matter what happens, Jamie Walker will never let me down.
Chapter Two
JAMIE
I’m piling two thick slices of sourdough bread high with the works when my dad walks into the kitchen. He gives me a nod and eyes my sandwich without a word. Pulling down a plate from the cabinet, I slide it across the kitchen island toward him. We make mostly matching sandwiches, although his triple-decker concoction is a lot heavier on the onion and mayo, reminding me that although I’m a lot like my dad, I’m not exactly like him.
That’s something I wish he could understand.
“You slept late. I thought we could get some work done,” my dad says gruffly, slathering his top slice of bread with even more of the gooey white condiment.
By work, he means riding. Training. I was in kindergarten the first time he had me mutton busting. I can still smell the sheep’s wool as I clung to its back while it bucked. It was nothing like being on the back of a bull, but it’s how a lot of us got started so young.
All these years later, there are still times when I’d much rather be on the back of a wooly sheep than climbing up on a pissed-off beast weighing a literal ton or more. I could never tell the old man that. It would break his heart. Break apart our relationship, which hasn’t always been the steadiest, especially since we lost Mom.
