The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(82)

He was so hard it was painful.

“You’re always getting me naked before you take off any clothes,” she said.

“Because I’m impatient.”

And he looked at her then, sprawled back against the couch, her bra still on, her panties decimated. He stood back, slowly removing his own clothes, taking some pride in the fact that she couldn’t take her eyes away from him as he did so. In the way that she clearly enjoyed the look of his body. It was beyond intense, this thing between them. That he just about lost it over her looking at him. Over the way she moved her eyes over him like she wanted to devour him. Like she wanted to consume him whole.

He wanted her to. Wanted to be consumed in this, consumed in the two of them.

She took her bra off, sliding the bright yellow fabric down her arms and tossing it onto the floor. Then he bent down, picked her up from the couch and carried her back toward the bedroom. He nuzzled her neck, kissing her gently as he laid her down on the mattress. “I want you. So much. You can’t even know.”

“I do,” she said, curving her hand around his neck and kissing his mouth. And for a moment, it felt like enough. For a moment, in that bedroom, with just the two of them, it felt like everything it could ever need to be. And he knew that when it was finished, they were going to have to talk. And he knew that when it was finished, it wasn’t going to be that simple. But right now it was.

The next breath he took blended into hers, and now it just seemed to go on. As she moved her hands over his body, as he lost himself in her. And he remembered thinking—it seems so long ago—that she wasn’t a conventionally beautiful woman. That she wasn’t the kind of woman he usually chose. He couldn’t even see that now, because she was the kind of beauty carved out specifically for him. As if each part of her had been made to appeal to a part of him.

As if they were Adam and Eve.

He pulled her down over the top of him, her silken body over his. She pressed her hands down to his stomach, and he looked up at her, reveling in the view. Her wild hair falling over the plump curves of her breasts, her skin pale and lovely, unknowing, with a smile on her lips.

And then she rocked her hips just so, and brought the slick entrance to her body over the head of his arousal, and he nearly lost it then and there. She was the only woman he’d ever been with without using that barrier of protection, and once she’d said it was fine, well, they’d dispensed with condoms entirely. He had never been in the kind of relationship where he would do that. And with her... With her there were no barriers. With her there was nothing but this. He rocked his hips upward, plunging deep inside of her, grabbing hold of her hips and bring her down as he moved out. She gasped, letting her head fall back. And then she began to move her hips in a knowing, sensuous rhythm. Because she knew him. And her. The secrets of their pleasure together.

She began to whimper, fractious little kitten sounds coming up from her throat, and then he gripped her hard, reversing their positions, bringing her down onto the soft mattress. Because he couldn’t wait anymore. Couldn’t take her teasing anymore. Because he needed her to know.

That this was real. And she was his.

She was his.

He released his hold on his control, pounding hard inside of her, letting his body say what words felt insufficient to express.

The depth of how much you need her. Of how much he wanted them to be one. Because they were in this. In their desire for one another. She looked up at him, and there were tears in her eyes, and he felt an answering expansion in his chest. Emotion flooding him, filling him.

Mallory.

Fate.

Every step, every broken piece of that rocky road that he walked...

It was worth it to be here.

In this moment.

With this woman.

Everything was worth it.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his release threatening to overtake him. But he couldn’t take it, not until she had hers.

“Oh, Mallory,” he whispered. “Please.”

And as if she knew exactly what he was asking for, she shattered. Bright and brilliant beneath him. Her cries of desire were the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard. The most essential thing.

He swallowed them as he tasted her lips, as he shuddered and spent himself inside of her.

“I love you,” he said against her mouth.

So she could hear it. So she could feel it.

So she could know.

That everything she’d said she didn’t want, they became.

That everything he knew they needed, they were.



CHAPTER TWENTY


MALLORY’S SKIN WAS sweat slicked, her body buzzing from the release she just had. From him. He was still thick and hard inside of her even though he’d come, and he was looking at her so...

She had to look away. She couldn’t keep looking at those eyes.

“Colt,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he said.

And those words that she’d been trying to deny, trying to ignore, rolled over her like a wave. She had tried to shut her ears, trudged up the mountain, tried to pretend that it wasn’t happening. The dread that had bloomed low in the pit of her stomach that first time grew. A creeping vine of terror that made her want to escape the room. Escape her skin. That made her want to be anywhere else.

“I’m not supposed to be doing this right now,” she whispered. He held her down, held her fast, his hand the strong grip on her jaw.