Page 25 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

I hear my own childhood trauma coming out of my mouth again.

But is it really trauma if you had a wonderful parent?

Is it really trauma if it taught you life skills that are very valuable?

Everyone should know how to cook for themselves.

I’m an athlete, so knowing how to make healthy meals has been an asset.

So yeah. It’s not like it’s wasted effort.

It’s not like it’s something that did me long-term harm.

“I’m good,” I say.

“You seem like it.” I don’t think she means that.

“I like cooking for her. I still do.”

“Well, I appreciate you cooking for me.”

She’s clearly decided to let me off the hook with this one.

I add rosemary croissant croutons, some chevre, Craisins, a cucumber, and artichoke hearts to the salad.

I toss it in balsamic vinaigrette, and by the time I’m done with that, the noodles are through cooking, and her vegetable sauce is done marrying ingredients. “Let’s eat on the patio.”

I’m usually a beer guy, but this seems like a good time for wine, which she seems content with.

“Remember when we took you out to the Gold Valley Saloon for your birthday?” I ask.

She gives me a pointed glare. “Yes.”

“You drank so many daiquiris.”

“Yes. Well. It was my birthday. That’s what you’re there for.”

“Gentry practically had to cart you out of there in a wheelbarrow.”

“It was fun.”

“Yeah. It was. Then you were beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring at you.

” The memory makes my stomach tighten. It’s one of those things that I’ve been pushing away ever since.

But she was just so cute and giggly that night.

Happy. Dancing with Lily, attracting attention from everywhere.

She’s lovely. She had a boyfriend at the time, and he was there, enjoying things, and probably thinking he was going to get lucky. He probably did.

She’s never had difficulty attracting a man.

But apparently, none of them have done right by her.

So I reserve the right to be annoyed at them.

A woman as pretty as her deserves more than men who are just using her to have their own pleasure.

A man has to appreciate a woman’s body if he’s going to have it shared with him, in my opinion.

Has to be just as invested in her pleasure as he is in his own.

Hell, more so. That’s just what I think.

“I was beautiful?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I reach out and take a strand of her hair between my fingers. “It made me mad.”

“Why?”

“I guess for the same reason I make you mad.”

She ducks her head. “No comment.”

“You were dating… What’s his name?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah. I was.”

“And he was bad in bed.”

“We’ve established this.”

“Interesting.”

“Well, if you had offered that night, I would’ve gone home with you.”

My stomach goes tight, pleasure brushing down to my groin. I want her again. And we’ve already done away with all the explanations, potential recriminations, and what-ifs. We’re just doing this.

I wait impatiently for her to finish her meal. Her glass of wine.

Then I lean in, cup her face, and watch as her pupils expand, as her breath catches.

I feel an answering response in my own body.

My own need building. I kiss her then. It’s even sweeter than I remember.

Even better than it was this morning. When she kissed me up against the wall I was shocked.

Now I’m in control. Licking her lower lip, her upper lip, nipping her, sucking that lip into my mouth.

She groans, her hand going to my thigh underneath the table, nails digging into me.

“I should’ve had you then,” I whisper against her mouth. “But I didn’t. I have you now, though.”

“Please,” she whispers.

I want to pick her up and carry her to bed. I want to throw her around and give her a good athletic fuck. I want to take her in the shower, against the wall, and I can’t do any of that. At the moment, I don’t actually care if I ever ride again. What I want is to be able to take her, anyway I want.

She’ll be gone by then. And you won’t be doing this anymore. I don’t like that realization, so I push it to the side. There’s quite enough happening in my life right now that I don’t want to face. I don’t need to be bracing really realistic about this.

“Come to bed,” I say.

She nods slowly, and stands up, then she’s the one who reaches her hand out, and I take it. We walk together to the bedroom, and I wrap my arms around her, kissing her hard and deep. And I decide that I’m good to have her just like I want her. I will figure it out.

But while I’m thinking of that, she’s pawing at my shirt.

I strip it up over my head, and she leans in, licking my chest, moving her hands down my midsection, down my stomach. Letting her tongue blaze a trail down to the waistband of my ruined jeans.

She undoes my belt. I sit down on the bed, because I know I’m not going to be able to keep steady if she’s headed for what I think she is.

“I know I didn’t make a casserole tonight, but am I allowed to give you a blow job?”

Need courses through me, a fierce, possessive yes echoing inside of me.

I growl, my hand going to her hair, forcing her face up to meet my gaze.

“Yes, you have my permission.” I’m supposed to be teasing, but it doesn’t come out light.

Doesn’t come across as a joke. Instead, my voice sounds tortured.

Dominant in a way that I’m usually not in the bedroom.

I like to take charge in small ways. I like to be the strong one.

But I don’t need to play power exchange games.

For the first time, I kind of get the appeal.

She undoes the snap on my jeans, the zipper, frees my cock and leans in, her tongue darting out to the head, pleasure cascading over me at a wave.

She presses her soft lips to me.

A kiss.

A kiss of all things. And I’m dying. Then, she sucks me in deep, swallowing me down.

She makes eye contact with me, those beautiful green eyes on mine as she tastes me.

I start to arch my hips up off the mattress, unable to control myself.

Unable to hold back. I’m still holding her hair, thrusting up against the back of her throat.

She’s taking me like a champ.

And I do pull her hair now. I’m rewarded with a rough sound of pleasure from her that echoes through me.

It’s the best fucking blow job I’ve ever had in my life. She is in possession of this level of skill, and those assholes she’s been sleeping with can’t be bothered to make her come? Pearls before swine. Pearls before God damn pigs.

She deserves so much more. She’s a queen. A goddess.

I thrust upward, and she brings her head down even more aggressively, a guttural sound in the back of her throat. I gasped, then pulled her away quickly, because I’m about to lose it. She wipes at her mouth, dainty, sweet. Hell, that wasn’t either of those things.

“I could’ve kept going,” she says.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you could do that?”

“It’s not something that comes up in polite conversation. Though I have to say, I’ve never put myself to the test quite like that.”

Oh my ego is out of control now. My hand still fisted in her hair I draw her up and bring her in for a kiss.

My arm wrapped around her waist, I practically bring her up onto my lap.

And then, I reverse our positions. I’ve got my leg and the brace off the bed, my toe barely making contact with the ground but not bearing any weight.

My other leg is on the bed, my knee pressed into the mattress. “I want to fuck you,” I say.

“I thought that was the idea.”

“No. Like this.”

I’m over her, my eyes blazing into hers.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

I growl. “I’ve got it.”

With a look of desperation on her face, she reaches over to the nightstand and paws around for a condom.

She reminds me of a video that I saw of a raccoon trying to grab dog food while not looking.

But she resurfaces with the condom, and tears it open quickly.

Then she reaches between us, and rolls it over me. Squeezes me for good measure.

I let my head fall back. God it feels good. She feels good.

This feels good. She brings out a whole lot of things in me that I’ve never explored. This desire for the forbidden. Enjoying more intensity during sex. Who would’ve ever thought that my stepsister was the key to unlocking all that.

I draw up her thigh and bring it up over my hip as I sink slowly into her tight heat.

She feels so good. So tight. So perfect.

I start to move, and she’s so slick and wet, it’s perfect.

Easy. But I don’t let it stay easy. I take her hard, and her fingernails dig into my shoulders.

I hope that she draws blood. Damn it all if I have to be marked by life, then I want some scars from this.

I whisper in her ear, rough, crude commands that seem to only get her more excited.

And then I can feel her coming around my cock, her pleasure so explosive, so intense, that I’m afraid it’s going to send me over right then too.

That my own orgasm is going to be so hard, so intense, that my remaining whole bones are going to burst into smithereens.

When it does come, I might as well be getting thrown down into the arena again. That’s how intense it is. That’s how raw. And I wouldn’t change it. It’s perfect. It’s everything.

I rest my forehead against hers, breathing hard. We’re both sweaty. “Shower,” I say.

“But you…”

“I’ll sit on my bench,” I say. “With my sad leg condom.”

Suddenly, the sexy shower doesn’t seem all that sexy. I regret suggesting it, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, she helps me get ready. And then, while I sit on the bench and shower, she stands across from me, naked, perfectly dry, waiting her turn.

“It’s impractical,” I say. “But it’s a damn good show.”

“I don’t really mind it either. When I walked in the other morning, I…”

“That’s why you were so embarrassed. Because you actually do want to see me naked.”

“Well, yeah. I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“Not to me. Because I didn’t figure… Well. You know.”

“Right. It’s impossible. No one would ever suspect this.”

She smiles. And it’s wicked. I want her to stay the night with me. I make that decision then and there. Tonight, she’s mine. And I’m not going to take any arguments about that.