Page 37 of Knot Her Cowboys (Big Sky Omegas #2)

T he whole room smelled like a sugar-dipped meadow. Riley’s sweetness saturated the air, her desperation turning her scent into floral syrup.

I was going to get high off the way she shuddered with every touch.

Having her tied up and submitting to my mercy, was the radical opposite to every other time I’d gotten my hands on her.

The luxury of time to explore her—to learn her responses and how she’d changed in our years apart—was something I’d never anticipated.

The shake of her muscles as she melted onto the blankets and the whine slipping through her lips made me want to keep her like this forever.

“Eight,” I said, utterly satisfied with how she reacted to me.

Riley whimpered. Her whole body was flushed, sweat beading on her forehead. “Cooper, I’m not going to make it.”

“You will.” I leaned in, kissing my way up her body until I met her lips. “You’re more than halfway already.”

“More than halfway to dead , Cooper.” She laughed, wiggling against the ropes binding her to the headboard.

“Do you need to be untied? Circulation still okay?”

“Limbs are fine,” she replied with a huff. “Just frustrated with everything else.”

I wedged my fingertips beneath the ropes, making sure she wasn’t being stubborn for the sake of it—a trait we too often shared. “I’ll let you out. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“No.” She pouted. “I’m taking the punishment edging and you can’t stop me.”

I laughed lightly. “Technically, I’m the only person who can stop you right now.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I think you need a few more. You’re entirely too coherent.”

She tensed before I touched her, already prepared for the pleasure and denial she knew was coming.

Denial wasn’t something I had experience with, least of all with her.

She tried hard to keep her wits about her, but she was so sensitive at this point I could probably set her off breathing on her the right way.

Her omega whine lanced through me. Omegas were designed to take pleasure and weren’t particularly tolerant of denial, but she knew I needed this, so she submitted to it.

Riley’s pussy squeezed my fingers and I stilled.

“No,” she whimpered.

“Close. The word you’re looking for is nine.”

Each rise and pause provoked a feral growl out of her.

Her frustration became my satisfaction. A little delayed gratification certainly couldn’t make up for more than a decade apart, but strange as it was, having her like this was starting to stitch together the wound of our separation.

Riley was gifting me control after so many years of having none.

She was already a mess of slick, but I wasn’t leaving room for a single thought in her head by the time I was finished. I counted out the seconds in my head. Touching her too soon could spoil the fun.

I laid a trail of kisses down her thigh, lapping up her flowing slick, a fountain of desire just for me. She’d have probably crushed my head between those plush thighs if I hadn’t tied her up. I’d let her, in time.

Riley’s desperate little sounds gave her away. No matter how much she tried to suppress them, it was a lost cause. She wasn’t capable of hiding how much she wanted me to touch her, and that made me want to do it forever.

I pulled away again, prepared for her frustrated growl, but not for the tears in her eyes. Leaning over her let me kiss her gently, cradling her cheek. “Hey,” I said softly, “You’re okay. You’re almost there. What number are we at?”

“T-ten.” She shuddered, struggling as she came down from the latest peak.

“See? Only two more. You can take two more for me, can’t you?”

She struggled briefly against the ropes before relaxing again with a nod.

“Do you want me to stop and let you out of the ropes?”

Riley shook her head.

I wiped the tears from her cheeks, staying right where I was so I could listen to every panting breath in high definition. “Good girl.”

She moaned, pulling at the ropes again. “I miss touching you.”

“Soon,” I promised, trying to hide the fact that her simple statement had me high as a kite.

I claimed her mouth as I let my fingers descend once more, teasing her with a slow plunge and an easy grind on her clit.

Staying this close to her while she struggled with the sensations eroded the mental distance between us.

Riley was here and she had promised to stay. She had promised to come home too, and I suppose she had kept that promise, even if it was years later than I would’ve liked. I intended to brand myself into her being, to love her so hard and so thoroughly, she would never contemplate leaving again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For?”

“Not for leaving.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “I needed to go, but I should have kept trying to reach out. I should have kept calling until I got through to someone.”

“I know you needed to go, Riley.” I nuzzled the soft waves of her hair. “I just wanted to go with you because you were the only home I needed.”

Riley sniffled, tears sliding down her temples and into her hair. “You can’t say such sweet things to me while I’m being ruined.”

“No?” I kissed her forehead. “Try and stop me.”

She groaned, arching with panting breaths.

I paused my movements, consuming her whimper like it was a delicacy only for my tongue.

Riley dropped her head to the pillow and gasped out, “Eleven.”

“That’s my girl. One more for me.”

I undid the ropes on her ankles, and she locked them behind my back. “One more,” she repeated. “I can—I can do that.” She nodded like she was trying to convince herself of that reality.

I shifted my hips so I could rock against her, indulging myself in every shudder the movement coaxed from her.

“All I ever wanted was to share a life with you. I never cared where we’d end up as long as we were together. I’d have suffered through that crowded city so you could thrive at school and open your restaurant.”

“I don’t— Fuck . I don’t want you to suffer through something to be with me.” Riley whined again, pussy clamping down, her fingers holding on to the headboard for dear life, and I stilled. “I want—Cooper, please . I lied. I can’t do it. I’m one hundred percent going to die.”

I silenced her complaints with another kiss.

She braced her feet on the bed, using her freedom to her advantage, rocking her hips against me, trying to scale the peak on her own.

I let her for a moment, until my sweet omega gave herself away again with the arch of her body.

Inching away and planting my hands on her hips stopped her pleasure in its tracks.

“Twelve,” she ground out.

“What do you want, Riley?” I asked quietly, following up on the statement she hadn’t finished.

“I don’t want to take your dreams from you just so I can have mine.”

I unbound her wrists, rubbing her shoulders to alleviate any lingering tension from her straining. “Is there a way we can both have what we want?”

She hummed. “Probably, but you turned my brain into soup, so I’m not going to think of an answer right this second. I feel like Jell-O.”

“I bet you do.” Another kiss, and her limp arms still reached for me. “How do you want me to finish you?”

She purred, threading her fingers through my hair. Her mouth was insistent against mine for a few glorious moments before she ran out of steam and melted beneath me. “Knot,” she said firmly.

I let her stretch out across the blankets and expose the litany of tattoos decorating her skin.

I traced the ones dancing up her ribs, a dozen wildflowers that grew right outside our door here.

The bouquet of lupines on her hip perched in a little barrel didn’t match the others in style, this one more cutesy than the rest. “Why a barrel and not a vase? Or the flowers by themselves?”

Riley chewed her bottom lip. “Because that one is yours.”

“Mine?” I moved my fingertips over the flower stalks. “What makes it mine?”

“What do you call a person who makes barrels?”

My mind blanked. “I might’ve missed that vocabulary lesson.”

Riley laughed, despite the flaming pink of her cheeks. “A cooper.”

My breath stalled in my throat. “Are you serious?”

“Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

“No, I believe you. I just gave up hope you wanted my mark on you.”

“A tattoo seemed like the next best thing after a bondmark.” She shrugged awkwardly.

I lay by her side, dragging her close.

Her gaze slid across my chest, pausing at my own tattoo that was far less subtle than hers. “You got a tattoo of my name?”

“You’re just noticing now?”

“You’ve been busy crossing my eyes,” she said with a laugh.

“This is the first time you’ve been shirtless where I can actually see all of you.

” She traced the loopy font of her name on my chest. It was based on one of her notes she’d given me years ago, back when she’d still been putting a heart above the i in her name.

“I had to keep you close to my heart somehow.”

Riley locked her arms around my neck, rolling to draw my weight over her. “Keep me close this way.”

“Gladly.” Her mouth was impossibly sweet against mine, and the spread of her thighs was a welcome home I eagerly accepted. She arched against me as I fucked in smooth and slow, her nails digging into my skin anywhere she could get purchase.

It didn’t take me long to figure out the best speed and angle to unravel her. Even if I hadn’t been paying every ounce of attention to her, she certainly wasn’t shy about letting me know what she wanted now that she was past her denial and on to satisfaction.

“Yes, fuck . Cooper, don’t stop, don’t you fucking—” She fell apart for me with my name on her lips and her nails in my skin.

I carried her through that rise and up the path of another, devouring every one of her perfect sounds.

With permission to come, her pleasure was a flash flood.

Each time I drove into her she got closer to the edge and flung herself off when it got to be too much.

She hadn’t been quite this easy to please before presenting, though I had always made it my mission.

Her omega body thrived on the attention, her sweet cunt lined with pleasure centers that made it easier for her to come during her heats.

It seemed silly to do anything but take full advantage and give her everything she needed.

Every clench of her pussy stole my breath. She was fucking magnificent , everything I had dreamed of and more. The feel of her body beneath mine was going to haunt me for the rest of the time.

Riley tensed sharply, arching with a feral cry and squeezing my cock so tightly I tumbled over the edge with her. I plunged deep, nestling our hips together as my knot swelled, my girl letting the entire house know I was taking care of her.

Her grip on my knot blacked out my vision.

She sounded like heaven and felt like it too. It didn’t matter how many times I heard her like this; I always wanted more.

I surfaced slowly with a gentle rock of my hips, Riley shuddering with every movement. Her smile was sleepy and blissed as she looked up at me from the pillow, the expression eclipsed as she drew me in for another kiss.

“Worth the wait?” I asked playfully.

“You’re always worth it, Cooper.” She traced the planes of my face, her palm settling to cup my cheek as her eyes turned misty. “I love you so much.”

My breath stilled in my chest, the remaining fractures of her absence filling up with the molten gold of those words.

I hadn’t let myself believe she still loved me.

I’d hoped, but after all those years it had seemed like a fool’s errand to keep believing.

But then, I’d never stopped being a fool for her.

“I love you more.”

Moisture lined her lower lashes. “It doesn’t feel real that you’re here right now.”

“No tears,” I whispered, kissing each of her cheeks in turn before brushing my mouth against her. “It’s real and it’s going to stay that way because I am never going to let you go again.”

Her arms locked around me so tightly I could hardly breathe. “Promise?”