His mouth press kisses along the line of my jaw, then nips my earlobe. “You gotta be quiet now, angel,” he murmurs. “Can’t have the whole rodeo hearing how good I’m about to make you feel.”
I nod, but it’s shaky. My body’s already trembling, hypersensitive, coiled and ready.
“You always take me so well,” he whispers as he slides the head of his cock in and rocks against me slowly, deliberately, letting me adjust to him. “You were made for me, you know that? Perfect fit.”
It’s too much. The praise, the heat, the stretch of him inside my heart and soul. Then he moves, the pace relentless and my breath gets knocked with every thrust. I’m biting the back of my hand to stop myself from screaming out loud.
He trusts in hard. “I’ll never get enough of this.” He growls.
My head falls forward, resting against the wall of the tack room, my breath ragged as he moves behind me with steady, devastating rhythm. Every thrust feels like a vow. Every whispered word brands me.
“You’re mine angel,” he says, voice fraying. “I’m the only one touching you like this. I’m the only one to make you feel this full.”
“Yours” the words leaving my lips on a moan.
Tears prick my eyes—not from pain, but from the intensity of it all. The weight of it. The truth in his voice.
I reach behind me, desperate to touch him, to anchor myself somehow, and he catches my hand, linking our fingers and holding it against the bench.
“I’ve got you,” he promises. “Always.”
And somehow, even with the world narrowed to heat and sensation, that’s the part that undoes me.
When release comes, it steals my breath. It’s not just physical—it’s everything. Emotional. Shattering. Whole.
Grant follows with a low, broken groan against my skin, arms tightening around me as he lets go and spills inside me.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. We’re just pressed together in the aftermath, hearts pounding, skin damp with heat, breaths mingling in the quiet of the tack room.
Finally, he leans his forehead against the back of my shoulder, lips ghosting over my skin.
I turn in his arms, weak-limbed and reeling, and kiss him like it’s the only thing tethering me to the earth.
Because right now, it is.
Chapter 31
Mia
The late morning sun filters through the windows as I rummage through Lily's duffel bag of borrowed swimwear. She’d dropped it off yesterday at the Caffeine Drip while we were catching up with Annie—handing it over like she was dealing contraband, eyes darting around dramatically as if someone might arrest her for smuggling string bikinis. “Proper Texas swimming attire,” she whispered, like it was a classified mission. “You cannot keep showing up in that Olympic-issued granny suit.”
I’d laughed so hard my coffee nearly shot out my nose, but honestly? She wasn’t wrong.
Somehow, in the space of just a few weeks, the three of us—me, Lily, and Annie—have become the kind of friends that feel like forever. The kind you’d call to hide a body or pre-screen your texts to a cowboy you’re not supposed to be falling for. We gossip, we eat pastries like it’s cardio, and they both seem weirdly invested in my love life, which I pretend to hate but secretly love. I refrain from telling Lily how much her brother likes chairs…specificallybeingone. Hee hee.
I’m elbow-deep in Lily’s duffel bag, scouring through swimwear—which mostly looks like dental floss and a prayer—when my fingers brush past a red bikini top-Triangle cut. Barely lined. More string than sense.
And here I thought they said everything’s bigger in Texas.
There’s a note from Lily attached to it—”If Grant sees you in this and doesn’t combust on the spot, I’ll be shocked. Go get him, tiger.”
I blink. “Absolutely not,” I mutter, shaking my head like I can dislodge the image forming. “Not today, Satan.”
I chuck it aside, the top landing with a soft slap on the bedspread.
“Not happening, Lily,” I say to the empty room. And yet my eyes betray me, drifting back to that scandalous pile of red and imagining how it might look against my skin. No, how Grant would look at me with it on.
A knock at the door makes me jump.
