Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(73)

“What was that?” he asked, coming down onto the couch with her.

“I’ve never really worn a dress. I mean, not since I was a kid. And I was thinking, the really neat thing about a dress is how you could reach up underneath and touch me without even taking my clothes off.”

“You’re killing me,” he groaned, braced halfway over the top of her, his eyes glittering with need.

She lifted a shoulder. “I just thought it might be fun.”

And then that last word was cut off by his kiss. She parted her thighs, as much as she could in the dress, and the fabric pushed its way up as he settled between them, his denim-clad arousal hard against the thin fabric of her panties.

He rocked against her, and she moaned, rolling her hips so that she could feel him better. So that she could feel this.

All of it.

It was so powerful. That was what surprised her the most. Because the way the conversation had swirled around her when she was with the cowgirls, there had been this idea that the women who gave it up so easily to the cowboys were weak in some way.

But she could imagine they felt like...like they were shifting the earth and the stars, making those big men shake like this.

Those powerful, masculine men who tamed bucking broncos and bulls. Maybe one of those women couldn’t ever do that, but they held the men themselves in thrall, in the palms of their hands.

And it was a different kind of power.

Different than the one she’d been trying to claim for herself. Different than the one she aimed for by competing in men’s sports. Honing her body into something stronger and more fit. That was strength. A strength that she enjoyed and admired. But this was a different kind altogether. This sort of softness that seemed to curve itself around all that hardness, and make it bend.

Make it weak.

She had the power to do that. Just as she was.

Just as she was.

They kissed. Endlessly. Like it was the only destination. Like it was the only game. His hips bucked against hers, and she felt herself getting wetter and wetter, more and more ready for the insistent throb of his arousal. But she also wanted to stay in this moment, in this torture, for as long as possible. Because it was a gift. An undeniable, magical gift, just as much as it was a torture.

Then he grabbed hold of her hips, pushing the fabric of her dress up her thighs. “Was this your fantasy?” he asked, his voice rough. He moved his hand between her legs then, hooking his finger around the elastic band of her underwear, right where it covered the most intimate part of her, and swept it to the side. The sound he made, the way the air rushed through his teeth, sent a bolt of lightning straight through her.

“You are so pretty,” he said. “You make my mouth water.”

She wasn’t nervous. He’d done this before.

But now she knew, and that made it different. Made her antsy. Desperately so. Hungry for his touch. For his mouth. Hungry for everything that he had in store for her.

His eyes intent on hers, he pushed two fingers through her slick folds, stroking her. And he never looked away.

“Jake,” she whispered. Saying his name like that, looking at his face... It ramped up her desire.

Jake.

Her Jake. Her best friend.

He was the one touching her. He was the one stroking her. Drawing the wetness out from inside her body and slicking it over that sensitized bundle of nerves right there.

She moaned, grabbing hold of his arm, looking for something, anything, to brace herself as her hips worked in a restless rhythm. He pushed two fingers inside of her again, relentless in his torture of her.

“Jake,” she said again.

“What’s wrong, Cal? Too much for you?”

It was absurd. His use of her nickname right now. That familiarity, combined with the huskiness of desire. Combined with the way that he was touching her.

She thought she was going to burst with it. Combust.

“You wanted me to push your dress up and take you like a dirty girl,” he said. “That’s what you really want, isn’t it? You don’t have to be strong all the time,” he growled, leaning forward and biting her neck. “You can just be mine.”

She shivered, shuddered, coming around his fingers with embarrassing ease.

She threw her head back, a cry of desire reverberating through her.

“You like that, don’t you? Being mine. My wife.”

“Jake,” she said again.

She wanted desperately to tell him not to tease her. Because all of this hurt, and she didn’t know what game he was playing. Why he’d gotten so intense, why he was saying these things when they both knew that wasn’t real. This was real. The way that he touched her. His body buried inside of her... That was real. Everything else... It would end. It had to end. She knew that as well as he did. So why say that? Why bring up that she was his wife and he was her husband when it was going to end in just over a month?

But then he was pushing her dress higher, exposing her stomach, pressing his hot lips to the skin there, and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the moment. Like that isolated piece of time they’d shared looking at the stars. There was nothing before this and nothing after. And in this moment, she was his wife. In this moment, he was her husband. And his mouth was creating havoc on her body.

Keeping her underwear pulled firmly to the side, and his fingers deep inside of her, he moved his mouth to the center of her pleasure, sucking on her mercilessly, pushing her further, faster, than she had imagined possible. And just like that, she climaxed again. And then again. Until she was begging him to stop.